lørdag den 17. oktober 2015

Two months in Ecuador!

Today I have been in Ecuador for two months! It is crazy to think about how fast time goes by. I have had so many great experiences since I arrived here, I have managed to see some of the country, make friends, have learned enough Spanish to having had an hour long conversation, changed my project and my living situation and a lot more! But it also means that I have spent 1/6 of my time in Ecuador. I get to wake up every day in the lovely country of Ecuador. I get to practice Spanish every day with a lovely host family (who makes me a lunch pack every morning and even cleans my room and my clothes, even though I tell them, that I can do it) and I get to work at a project I love!
Life is great, because "All you need is Ecuador"!
I still have a hard time when people tells me that time has passed in Denmark and tell me about fall and today my parents even sent me a picture from a store selling Christmas decorations!
But then again - time passes down here as well. The rain time has started which means that we have had major showers almost every afternoon since Tuesday. And the fact that rain down here makes me really happy shows one way I have changed since arriving. Normally, I get really depressed from rain in Denmark. But it have been so dry and dusty since I arrived here, so rain is great news! 
And they are also selling Christmas decorations down here and have had for a while now. Time passes by down here as well, but I find it really weird that we are in the middle of October.

I dag markerer den dag, hvor jeg har været to måneder i Ecuador. Det er vildt at tænke på hvor hurtigt tiden går og hvor mange fantastiske oplevelser jeg har haft siden jeg ankom her. Jeg har oplevet noget af landet, jeg har fået nye venner, jeg har lært spansk nok til at jeg kunne have en time lang samtale med min værtsmor og jeg har skiftet både projekt og bosituation i løbet af den tid. Men det betyder også at 1/6 af min tid i Ecuador er gået.
Jeg får lov til hver dag at vågne op i det dejlige Ecuador. Jeg får lov til at øve spansk med min dejlige værtsfamilie hver dag (som laver madpakke til mig hver morgen og gør mit værelse rent og rengør mit tøj, selvom jeg insisterer på at jeg selv kan gøre det) og jeg får lov til hver dag at vågne op til et projekt jeg elsker at arbejde på.
Livet er godt, fordi alt du har brug for er Ecuador.
Jeg har det stadigvæk svært med at folk fortæller mig at tiden går i Danmark og fortæller mig omkring efteråret og i dag sendte mine forældre mig et billede fra en butik, der solgte juledekorationer.
Men: Tiden går jo også i Ecuador. Her er regntiden startet hvilket betyder at vi har haft enorme regnbyer hver eftermiddag siden tirsdag. Og det viser også en måde hvorpå Ecuador har ændret mig: Fordi jeg har været rigtig glad for regnen! Og normalt finder jeg regn deprimerende. Men det har været så tørt og støvet siden jeg ankom, så regnvejr er virkelig gode nyheder.

Yesterday I went with a group of volunteers (Anne, Brónagh, Johanna, Lena, Leonie, Nina, Sofie, Sophie - I hope I did not forget someone!) to an "All You Can Eat and Drink" event at Papa John's in Quito. People was walking around with pizzas and you could get one slice that you had to eat, before you could get the next - and you also had to eat the crust. You could eat for 3 hours, and we arrived at around 4 o'clock, so we ate our dinner there. It was not an Ecuadorian experience and I did not crave pizza as much as the rest of the guys, but it was really nice to meet up with the volunteers that I do not hang out with normally and have a relaxed Friday afternoon and still be home in time to get plenty of sleep.

I går var jeg sammen med en gruppe af de andre volontører (Anne, Brónagh, Johanna, Lena, Leonie, Nina, Sofie, Sophie - Jeg håber at jeg ikke har glemt nogen!) til et "Alt Du Kan Spise og Drikke" event hos Papa John's i Quito. Folk gik rundt med pizza og du kunne få et stykke af gangen, som du skulle spise, inden du kunne få det næste stykke - inklusiv skorpen. Du kunne spise i 3 timer, og vi ankom klokken 4, så vi spiste vores aftensmad der. Det var ikke en ecuadoriansk oplevelse og jeg havde egentligt ikke specielt meget lyst til pizza, men det var rart at mødes med de andre frivillige som jeg ikke ser så ofte, og en dejlig afslappet fredag, hvor man stadigvæk kunne nå hjem og få masser af mad.
Papa John's

Papa John's - All you can eat.
Papa John's - Alt hvad du kan spise
I also woke up this morning thinking "I must have slept in today, it must be 10 or 11 o'clock and I am going to be late." When I looked on the clock it turned out it was not even 7 o'clock! But I get up at 6 o'clock and go to bed quite early normally, so that might be the reason.

Jeg er også blevet vandt til at sove meget og stå op klokken 6. I morges vågnede jeg nemlig og tænkte "Jeg har sovet meget længe i dag. Klokken må være 10 eller 11 og jeg kommer for sent." Hvorefter jeg kiggede på uret og så at den ikke engang var 7!

Orchids and Chocolate
Orkideer og Chokolade

Orchids and Chocholate
Orkideer og Chokolade

Today I went with Brónagh, Rebecca and Stefanie to the Botanical Garden in Quito - "Jardín Botanico de Quito".
Turned out that they had a special exhibition from the 14th to the 18th of October so of course there was a lot of people. The theme was "Orchids and Chocolate" which meant that besides from the normal plants and orchids (there are two permanent houses with orchids in the botanical garden) from all over Ecuador there was a lot of tents with special and additional orchids and a lot of them had won awards. It was pretty cool and Ecuador is the country with the biggest diversity of orchids.

I dag har jeg været i Quitos botaniske have sammen med Brónagh, Rebecca og Stefanie.
Det vidste sig at de havde en speciel udstilling fra den 14. oktober til den 18. october, så selvfølgelig var der en hel masse andre besøgende. Udstillingen havde titlen "orkideer og chokolade", hvilket betød at der udover de normalle planter og orkideer (der er normalt to huse med orkideer fra Ecuador) var en hel masse telte med specielle og additionelle orkideer og mange af dem havde vundet forskellige priser. Det var rigtig flot og Ecuador har også den største biodiversitet af orkideer.

Orchids
Orkideer
Price
Præmie

Winning orchids
Vinder orkideer
Orchids
Orkideer
Orchids
Orkideer
Really small orchids as well! One dollar coin for comparison.
Virkelig små orkideer! En doller i baggrunden for sammenligning.
And what made the day even better? Chocolate!
Ecuador claims to have the best chocolate in the world, and taste pretty good. The chocolate part of the exhibition consisted of tents where you could taste chocolate from the different chocolate brands of Ecuador. And we had a really good brownie (with lots of chocolate) as well.

Og den ting der gjorde dagen endnu bedre? Chokolade!
Ecuador påstår at have verdens bedste chokolade og det er også ret godt. Chokolade-delen af udstillingen bestod af telte, hvor du kunne smage chokolade fra forskellige ecuadorianske mærker. Og vi fik også virkeligt gode brownies (med masser af chokolade).
One place for tasting chocolate.
Et af de steder hvor man kunne smage chokolade.
Me, Stefanie, Brónagh and Rebecca in one of the orchid tents.
Mig, Stefanie, Brónagh og Rebecca i et af orkide-teltene.
At some point we walked into a deserted part of the botanical garden. We were afraid we had ended up a place we were not allowed to be, but there was a playground and we reached the conclusion that it was an old part of the botanical garden.

As the responsible adult I am, who are going to stay ten more months in Ecuador far away from home I decided to try the playground together with Stefanie. And it was really fun.

På et tidspunkt gik vi ind i en del af den botaniske have. Vi var bange for, at vi var gået ind et forbudt sted, men der var en legeplads og vi nåede frem til, at det bare var en gammel del af den botaniske have.

Og som det meget ansvarlige menneske jeg er, der skal tilbringe 10 måneder mere i Ecuador langt hjemmefra, besluttede jeg mig for at afprøve legepladsen sammen med Stefanie. Og vi havde det sjovt!
Playground!
Legeplads!
In the end of the day we had crepes (sweet or salt) and tea at a cafe to relax a bit before heading home.

For at slutte dagen af spiste vi henholdsvis madpandekager og dessertpandekager og drak te for at slappe af, før vi tog hjem igen efter en dejlig dag.

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