te con leche

my family is perfect and not necessarily in a good way. i'm finding reasons to complain but i tolerate it, you should, too. they're a picture i am just looking at, from the outside and i can't get in! they have movie nights, they go out and listen to music together, they eat every meal together except when at school. first of all that's not normal for a family with 2 teenage children, secondly, i don't know how to jump into this synchronized lifestyle of happiness and family.

achachay! it's cold in quichua and quito.

alalay! 'ugly' is such a pretty word, i'm down.

que cheverre! supposedly a very ecuatorian colloquiallism but i really think i've heard it around la.

que bestia! and this actually means cool, too, i guess equivalent to 'sick' in a good way.

after a second take at landing we arrived a week ago. it was night, cloudy and south america. since then i wished that we had landed and flown at least the second half of the flight during the day because i don't think i still realize how far i am from home. south america? four months? ay carramba (which no one says). see, if i had seen where i was going out of my airplane window i think that profundity might have stuck, but really i feel like i could be in mexico for all i know. and mexico, that's like next door.

SKINHEADS
they are here. 80 of them. they wear red suspenders and have buzzed heads. a group of us pitzerpeople happened upon them without realizing it. skinheads? neo-nazis? just rebeldes? so maybe they are just rebelling against the system which has done them wrong by taking power in a simple, symbolic manner. well so maybe they should identify with anarchists or punk music and be idiots that way that don't spark hatred or fear in most people. i think that's the general conclusion of those who were there to witness ecuatorian skinheads.

sopa de mariscos (shrimp, chicken, octopus(?), things in shells)-$3.60

unexpected travel stipend-priceless