Then Came the Rains

So I asked Kristen to write a couple of emails in Spanish for me (I would dictate in English) to try and impress friends (into thinking I can actually speak Spanish). Well, it totally backfired. Kristen was very tired and not too thrilled to comply and one of my friends emailed back shitting all over (what she thought was) my Spanish (but was actually Kristen's, who is probably as profecient as the other friend). Nevertheless, I think the whole thing is hillarious.

I checked out of my hostel and walked around old town here in Quito again. I went into the big ass basillica here and the marcado central. Outside of the basillica, a man driving his car stopped in front of me and asked me for directions. Evidently my ¨No se¨wasn't good enough because he replied, ¨Sorry.¨ I can't seem to find an Ecuadorian Hip Hop CD anyway here. When I ask, the vendor just looks at me like I'm nuts. But I've seen some graffiti with the names of local Hip Hop groups around town and I saw one for Hip Hop Radio on 99.3.

I ate at a fast food place called Gus. I figured that would give me a good chance to find someone who spoke English. Nope. Or at least to be able to change a $5. Nope. Some lady went crazy because I think something was stolen from her and another women starting screaming at the help, for what I don't know, but she was in front of me in line and I could tell she was crochety. I've never seen this before, but a vendor walked right into the fast food place and tried to sell his strawberries.

You can tell when it's going to rain a couple of hours before it does here. I was walking towards the sunlight when I got caught and ran for the hills. It rained so hard and started hailing, it was like India or something. That kind of rain equalizes all of us. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how little, you only have one thought at that moment, shelter! It rained for about 40 minutes as hard as I've seen (it just stopped). I ran for some shelter and under a canopy up on the second story across from the Ministry of Economics and Finance on August 10 Ave.

So that's my story. It looks like I'll be traveling for the next few days.