sanduches, piña y mcdonalds

i had mcdonalds for dinner last night.

it takes an hour by bus to get to the middle of the world. once there, the big tourist attraction is this disneyland-like place that costs $2 to get in and on sundays there is live music and dancers folkloricos.

the main buses in quito are blue and all look the same. then there are banners on the top front and back with which kind of bus it is (ej. Guadalajara, Mitad del Mundo). mine is the CA-TAR for going to school and most places in the city.

so while a bus is approaching, once you notice what the banner says, you have to look at the lower right hand corner of the bus, where it says, in random order, the different places it goes. My bus needs to say Eloy Alfaro somewhere in the block of street names and places.

once you get on it, there are 2 people running this bus. one is the driver, the other does everything else. this man or woman either asks for the 25 cents (and gives you change) or tells you to go to the back of the bus and you pay later. so then either he or she walks through the bus asking everyone for the money, or hunts you down as soon as you try to get off the bus.

if you want to get off the bus and you're near the back, you press a button (if there is one) and hope that the bus will slow down enough AND open the back door for you to get out. the extra person working the bus will get off the bus if you get off the back and ask for your money while the bus begins its exhaust-filled journey into motion. then this second person runs and jumps on the bus just as it starts to really move fast.

this person also tells the driver when he can start driving once anyone who wants to gets on or off the bus. i've seen a couple people get enraged when this second person asks them to pay because, so they say, they already have. this encounter with the second person is one of the most terrifying possibilites that really frightens me. if it does, hopefully i have enough extra change to give to the person and get it over with.

i just wrote a lot about buses, i can feel myself boring you, beloved reader.


this sarah palin would be a really cool lady if she wasn't such a (fill in the blank) with her political positions.