uhh well i would just like to thank people for giving me all the comments on this page and also for all those text messages especially for the ones about the super bowl. speaking of that game it sounded amazing and i wish i could have seen it. yester day turned out to be a good day. after having the ecuadorian delicacy of cerviche for lunch pepe, my older host brother, took me out on the town with his cousin and his girlfriend, who happened to be an exchange student from france. we first went to mall. which was really big, having four floors and lots and lots of space. it felt a lot like being in santa rosa. anyway after that we went to meet another friend in downtown guayaquil. as we were driving to meet him i realized that guayaquil is much more developed than i had ever thought. this is a very sophisticated city and very beautiful in many respects. we met pepes friend at his place of work which is a car tunning place. after that we went the area known as malecon 2000 which is this river front property with lost of bars and restaurants. it was very beautiful and by this time night was already setting in and the temperature was perfect. after that we met even more friends and went to an appartment of one of the them. the apartment was very posh and had lots of artwork and a great view. we hung out there for the next couple of hours playing the suprisingly entertaining game of jenga. after that we headed home because it was pretty late. after getting home the only thing to report was that after i came back in from brushing my teeth my door fell off. weird.
well i think as time settles in im going to get more and more used to this place. the other day i tried this think thats called like a yuca cake which looks like a biscuit but its made with yuca. i thought it would be sweet and really pleasant but instead it was hard and salty. i tried it yesterday again and it tasted better to me. i think that as soon as i can learn to like things like the yuca cake i will be set and really happy with living in this place. my host family is really nice and my host brother pepe is a really good dude. right now everyone is celebrating carnival and and all the shops and stuff are closed for the week. i guess ill just see what happens today. happy birthday claire.
-mark