Too many gringos

The last few days have been really busy and tomorrow I am off to a place that has no internet connection until Friday, so I thought I ought to update this before I leave! My Spanish lessons have still been going spiffingly and I can really feel my language improving (although that doesn´t stop everyone in this bloody place from trying to rip me off all the time!) so I have been more able to hold conversations and find out more stuff about the culture here. My homestay has been generally draining and stressful and in hindsight I really wonder what brought me to think it would ever be a good idea to live with a family. So I am counting the days until I can move out - luckily as of tomorrow I will be in Cotopaxi so I will be freeee for a few days, hurray! Yesterday was possibly one of the worst days of my life as I had managed to really offend my homestay woman on Friday night and also had the hangover from hell. Basically I had popped out ´for a few drinks´with a friend from the Spanish school and her friends and ended up in the middle of gringoland (the Mariscal) at some club until the early hours, dancing about with my friends and a Kiwi guy I had met. The kiwi guy was walking me home and we were just walking round and round in circles giggling over this map and when I eventually found my way back I staggered in only to be faced with a VERY ANGRY homestay lady. She was shouting at me (I caught ´tu no respectes la casa´ but not much else of it) and I was desperately trying to look sober while slurring back at her, probably in French. Needless to say the next day I could not face her and I am still avoiding being in the apartment as much as possible. Cringe. Call it cultural difference but I think as they treat me like a lodger and never invite me to anything, it is a little odd to then tell me what time I should come in at night, but it is their house and I guess 5am is quite excessive! However, after a bad start the day turned out well and my friends and I went to see Ecuador play Venezuela (for 15 dollars - bargain!). The atmosphere was incredible, and so much less masculine and aggressive than the atmosphere at football matches in Manchester. It was truly amazing to be at that match, even in the torrential rain (now a daily occurence!). I have started writing stuff for Martijn´s website and a bit for the newspaper this week, so I feel more purposeful, and I am enjoying spending time with some of the people I have met here, mostly gringos, so not good for my Spanish! Today Catriona, Steve and I caught the bus to a nearby village to see the Mitad del Mundo and its cheesy gimmicks - it is a farce really but great fun doing the water and egg experiments to show that it really is the equator (which it isn´t - it is about 150 metres off!). We also met up with my Spanish teacher Nancy, who is an absolute star and the most wonderful Ecuadorian person I have met so far, and she and her husband took us to see the Inca remains (stunning) and the crater (beautiful). I have realised that I am most happy when I am out of this scary, polluted city and out in the fresh air and mountains, so I plan to travel about quite a bit more. As you may have picked up, I am still not thrilled by Quito itself and am getting quite tired of being tricked out of extra dollars by taxi drivers. I am trying to be positive about Quito but it is difficult when you don´t even feel safe walking around alone and every local you meet seems to be out for themselves (and as for the majority of Brits and Ozzies I have met - they are like those awful obnoxious people I avoided at university!) I have heard that my boss at the paper is a pretty shady character with quite a bad reputation in the area, so I am in two minds whether to disassociate myself, but then again it is only a few weeks and I have a laugh with the others in the office, plus I am adding to my portfolio so will probably stick with it. On the up side, Quito is a good base for visiting other places (and transport is so easy and cheap), I am enjoying my writing, I´m meeting lots of people and there are plenty of cultural things I still want to go to in the old and new towns. I also think once I have moved into the apartment with the other young chicos and chicas I will have a very different perspective of the place andI certainly won´t have to worry about reporting where I´m going and when, and being back for meals etc etc. Still got lots of language to learn too, including remembering simple phrases and words. There was an amusing incident the other day when I was in a bar and I asked for the bill and the guy didn´t understand me, then I was ranting for about ten minutes about how nobody here understands me even when I´m speaking perfectly clearly, before Catriona´s friend Mike informed me that I had said ´cuesta´instead of ´cuenta´and it wasn´t even the right word! So yeah, I have a long way to go. I can´t wait for tomorrow as bus journeys here are my favourite thing, with so many different types of people getting on and off and cramming on and hanging out of the doorway, and traders jumping on to sell their fruit and bread and so on. So next time I write I will hopefully have stopped moaning about everything!