Just like my birthday, this is the first time I have ever celebrated Christmas away from home, and in another country! My family is super into Christmas and decorating, so we actually decorated the tree at the beginning of November (no joke). They put up lights, a blow-up Santa Claus, and streamers all over the outside and inside of the house. I remember whenever I had friends over in November they would ask why the decorations were already up haha. But for actual Christmas day, all the girls in my family (me, my host sisters, my host mom, and my host aunt) went to a place to get our make-up done professionally. Like I said, they go all out for Christmas. We then took pictures in front of the Christmas tree. They even dressed up Renzo, one of their cats, to look like an elf. During the day my host aunt and I made gingerbread cookies and a house from scratch. My host aunt loved the cat-shaped cookie cutter so we made a lot of cats. :) They turned out delicious! Finally, after cooking and baking in the kitchen all day, we had our cena de Nochebuena (Christmas Eve Dinner). After our dinner we went to the Misa de Medianoche (Midnight Mass) at their local church. It was not actually at midnight, but 10pm. They used to hold it that late in the past but have changed it since. It was cool to see how they celebrate Christmas and how the catholic services are here because I do not usually go to church, and the only times I have been to a Catholic Church have been with my grandma. They have a tradition in Ecuador where they bring a baby Jesus (some of them are actually life-sized babies), and they place them in the Nacimiento (or Nativity Scene) at the front of the church before the service starts. Then, when the service ends, everyone grabs their baby Jesus to get it blessed by the Priest. My host sister brought a little basket of baby Jesuses to get blessed. It was an interesting tradition to see!
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Today I turned 22!! This is the first year I've spent my birthday in another country, or even away from my family since it always falls on Winter Break. It was cool to experience this day here in Ecuador! My host family was really sweet and bought me a birthday cake and sang happy birthday. I also spent the day face-timing friends and family back home. At night I went out with my friends that were still in Ecuador to the movies to see the new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and then for pizza and drinks. My friends bought me a birthday crown, red wine and Sprite, and we all had pizza and tinto de verano together at Papa Johns. We ended up getting in trouble for popping the wine open in the restaurant... oops haha! My friend Sarah and I also made patacones the next day. I finally learned how to make them after over 4 months in Ecuador! They were delicious!
The Fiestas de Quito (or parties of Quito) are a celebration of the foundation of Quito that take place at the end of every November and last until early December. There are free concerts to the public everyday, processions for saints, and people go out to drink and just have fun. It is a pretty crazy time in Quito, but also really fun! In the picture above, we went to a free concert. We saw an indie band called La Máquina Camaleón performing. Here are some pictures with my friends over the week! Everyone gets ready to go out and party. And when I say people go out and party, I mean literally every night for around two weeks. I'm not even exaggerating, you see the streets packed even on Sunday night with people partying and acting crazy. Be sure to stay safe on the roads because on one of the nights I was taking an Uber back home with friends and got rear-ended by a drunk driver. Yikes! On another night we went on a chiva, which is a party bus. During this week of celebrations there are chivas picking up people all throughout the Avenida de los Shyris, and street vendors selling canelazo. Canelazo is a popular drink here made out of water boiled with cinnamon mixed with aguardiente, which is an alcohol made from sugar cane. There are little ropes to hold on to that hang from the roof, but to be completely honest they don't do much to help you stay balanced (especially when basically everyone on the chiva has had more than their fair share of canelazo). Here is a short video link to a video of us on the chiva so you can get an idea of what it looks like!:
https://youtu.be/Qm4fRVIjeok |
Ashley KoboldMy amazing experience studying abroad in Ecuador. ¡Qué chévere! Archives
December 2019
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