fredag den 28. august 2015

First week in the apartment, my birthday and Spanish classes!

Now I have been living one week in the apartment in Pomasqui with Stefanie. (Yeah, I'll post some pictures at some point - when I have taken some..)

Nu har jeg boet i min lejlighed med Stefanie i en uge. (Ja, jeg skal nok tage nogle billeder.. På et tidspunkt.)
Meet my roomie, Stefanie
Mød min roomie, Stefanie

The apartment is in a beautiful place and in our "backyard", we can take a short walk into a valley and the view is so beautiful. I think we would be able to see many birds if we got out of bed early one day (and had plenty of time) and walked down there just before sunrise. That is definitely on my list of things to do before I go home!
The whole place is fenced in, but when we went for a walk, the other gate was open! Then it will not help much to lock the front gate.
Furthermore, there is many ownerless dogs in the streets around our apartment that follow you if you walk by them, but fortunately they don't bite.

Vores lejlighed har en virkelig flot udsigt og i vores "baghave" kan vi gå en kort tur ned i en dal.
Jeg tror der ville være en god mulighed for at se mange fugle, hvis vi bare står tidligt nok op og går derned lige før solopgang. Det er bestemt en af de ting jeg skal gøre i løbet af min tid hernede.
Der er hegn omkring hele området og to porte, men da vi gik en tur var den ene port ikke låst. Så hvad hjælper det at den anden er låst?
Derudover er der rigtig mange ejerløse hunde i nærheden af vores lejlighed, men heldigvis bider de ikke.

View from our backyard
Udsigten fra vores baghave
View from our backyard
Udsigten fra vores baghave
View from our backyard
Udsigten fra vores baghave
Birds in our backyard
Fugle i vores baghave
This week we have had language-classes from Monday-Thursday, which meant that we had to be in Quito at 9 o'clock. As we have two hours+ to go there, we have to get up early. I am glad that the project is nearer to our apartment.

 I løbet af denne uge har vi haft sprogkursus fra mandag til torsdag og vi har været nødsaget til at være i Quito klokken 9. Hvilket betyder at vi har skullet tidligt op, da vi har 2 timer plus til skolen. Jeg er glad for at vores projekt er tættere på!

During this week a lot of other stuff have also happened.
For example I have had the experience of eating a really delicious and really large meal consisting of soup, another dish with rise, meat, vegetables and potatoes, having juice and a little serving of fruit for 2.5 dollar. That is definitely a lot cheaper than in Denmark.
Otherwise, I have visited a market where I bought a beautiful painting - as a sort of birthday present to myself. Because I actually had my birthday yesterday! And the picture will decorate my room in the apartment and I will take it with me when I go home.
It was a bit weird having my birthday in Ecuador. One of the other volunteers had done the sweetest thing ever and bought me a piece of cake on her way to the classes!
And another had written me a letter and bought me chocolate. When I arrived at the school people sang "Happy Birthday".

I løbet af denne uge er der også sket en masse andet.
For eksempel har jeg fundet ud af at du kan spise suppe, samt en ret mere med ris, grøntsager, kartofler og kød samt få juice og lidt frugt for 2,5 dollar - Det er bestemt meget billigere end i Danmark.
Jeg har også købt et maleri - som en slags fødselsdagsgave til mig selv. Jeg havde fødselsdag i går! Og billedet vil både pynte på mit værelse hernede og jeg vil bestemt tage det med hjem.
Det var lidt underligt at have fødselsdag hernede. En af de andre frivillige havde været virkelig sød og købt et stykke kage til mig og en af de andre havde lavet et kort til mig og købt chokolade til mig. Og da jeg ankom til skolen sang de fødselsdagssang for mig.
Me and my cake!
Mig og min kage!

Picture of my new painting, my two birthday cards and some memories from Denmark
Et billede af mit maleri, mine to fødselsdagskort og minder fra Danmark.
After class I headed towards el Centro (the old town) with 4 of the other volunteers, where we had lunch and ate ice cream. At the ice cream place (San Agustin Heladeria) we asked about some of the flavors, as we couldn't look them up in any of our dictionaries and we wanted to know what was in the ice cream. As they couldn't explain it, they gave us tastings of some of the flavors. It is a nice place with great service and tasty ice cream. If I were to show someone around Quito it would definitely involve a stop in there to have either ice cream or traditional Ecuadorian cakes.

Efter skole tog jeg til den gamle bydel sammen med 4 af de andre frivillige, hvor vi spiste frokost og is. Ved is-stedet(San Augustin Heladeria) spurgte vi om nogle af smagene, da vi ikke forstod hvad det var og ikke kunne slå smagene op i vores ordbog. Da de ikke kunne forklare det kom de med smagsprøver på nogle af isene - Virkelig god service.
Det var et virkeligt fedt og hyggeligt sted med god service. Hvis jeg skulle vise nogen rundt i Quito ville dette sted helt klart være et stop på ruten.
Our tastings of ice cream.
Vores smagsprøver på is.
Afterwards I had a meeting at the VASE-office and we were home at the apartment pretty late. At the apartment I had kept a letter from some of the guys from my old high school class, that was given to me before departure and was to be opened on my birthday.

Efterfølgende havde jeg et møde med VASE-kontoret og vi kom ret sent hjem. I lejligheden havde jeg et fødselsdagskort fra nogle af de personer jeg gik i gymnasieklasse med, som skulle åbnes i dagens andledning.

Today (28/8) we went on a trip to el Centro, where we saw a number of old churches from the outside, had a guided tour in the president palace, went into one of the churches and went to a museum that explained about the history of Quito, where we also had a guided tour. This was really interesting and a really nice day where we saw a lot, learned a lot and walked a lot. Making us all a bit tired by the end of the day. I find the history of Ecuador quite interesting as you don't really hear much about the history of Southern America in school in Denmark. (And we also told the meaning behind the word history, literally meaning "his story" because the history is written by the winners and because earlier only men were important for the history and had the possibility to write it down.)

I feel like I have something to do all the time - being bored? That is not gonna happen!

I dag (28/8) var vi på tur til den gamle bydel, hvor vi så et par kirker og så havde vi rundvisninger på et museum, hvor vi hørte om Ecuadors historie, i præsidentens palads og i en kirke.
Det var virkelig spændende at høre om Ecuadors historie, fordi man generelt ikke hører så meget om Sydamerikas historie i skolen. (og vi snakkede også om meningen af ordet historie = "Hans historie". Hvilket er fordi det var mændende der skrev historien og vinderen der skrev historien)

Jeg har det som om der hele tiden er noget at lave. Jeg keder mig i hvert fald ikke hernede.

And I feel like I'm getting better at the Spanish, but I still have a hard time with learning and understanding, as I have had almost no experience with Spanish before coming to Ecuador.
But I am learning the grammar and a few words in class, which is really great. I succeeded in buying bananas in a fruit store where the seller did not speak a word of English and I start to understand the meaning of some conversations and sentences. I hope that I will learn a lot more during my time here. I probably will, as almost no Ecuadorians speak English.

Jeg føler også at jeg er blevet bedre til spansk, men jeg har det stadigvæk svært med sproget, da jeg stort set ingen erfaringer med spansk har fra tidligere.
Men vi lærer både grammatik og ord i timerne, og det er lykkedes mig at købe bananer i en grønthandler, hvor sælgeren kun snakkede spansk. Jeg er også begyndt at forstå meningen af nogle sætninger.
Jeg håber at jeg kan blive meget bedre til spansk i løbet af min tid her - men det kommer formentlig også til at ske, da næsten ingen ecuadorianere snakker engelsk.


Me and my bananas
De bananer det lykkedes mig at købe

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