On Sunday, my host brother, Henry, had a mountain biking race. We left the house really early and headed south across the city to a beautiful park in one of the mountains around Quito. We got a little lost but in the process I got to see some beautiful views of Quito!  Later, Henry was presented with third-place for his cumulative scores in whole bunch of races. He’s really good at biking!

On Sunday night, we made our last batch of Duncan Hines chocolate chip cookies. The grocery stores around here were carrying the cookie mix until a couple of weeks ago. No more American comfort food! While we were baking, André decorated the eggs with all of our faces and names. They turned out pretty cute!

This past week marked Las Fiestas de Quito. I got Monday and Tuesday off from work! (Woo-hoo!)  It’s a week-long celebration of the founding of Quito. There are all sorts of parades, concerts, exhibitions, and other cultural events. There was even a free Picasso exhibition at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito. I went to see it with my host brothers, Henry and Esteban, and my friends Elizabeth and Robin. After goofing around in the museum, we headed to the Centro Historico for some Canelazo and empenadas. Canelazo is a hot spiced cinnamon rum drink which I DO NOT like but people here love it. After the exhibition we planned on seeing Andrés Cepeda but didn’t make it there in time. So sad because I LOVE his music. Oh well. Another time! I’m including my favorite Cepeda song so you can feel my pain in missing his performance!

P.S. I included a picture of what I thought was going to be the family dinner but turned out to be for the dogs. See anything you recognize?

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