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Published: November 18th 2007
Cake
So, when you're lucky enough to find yourself here on your birthday, you'll also find yourself lucky enough to have your head shoved into a cake. 
I guess things have been pretty busy here as of late. There's the same Christmas hype here that there is everywhere else. I think decorating was on the 7th. Pretty early. I'm already seeing commercials with Christmas themes. I doubt there'll be Thanksgiving here though. That's a shame. I'm going to miss the food I think. But hey, I've got my mangoes. There's mangoes up the wazoo here. There's probably about 10 different kinds too. Each has it's own distinct characteristics. They're so good. Only in season October until December, so, lots of mangoes all the time right now. So much flavor when they're not too ripe. Mmm. Anyway, enough of my mango talk. Came down with a little thing called dengue fever a week ago. Don't know where I picked that one up. Some mosquito somewhere. Maybe when I went to Ibarra. Dengue is a blast. Let me tell you. It wasn't too bad though. I was just in bed with a headache, fevers, the desire to do nothing, lots of thirst, and no hunger. Could have been worse. Could have come down with the hemorrhagic version. That could have been bad. All better now. Still tired a
The Three Amigos
Luigy, Diego, and I. They're really good friends from school. lot, but it could just be the constant heat. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but it's incredibly hot here all the time. Yesterday was bliss. Cloudy, windy, cool, small showers. Perfect day for my birthday. Don't really feel all that different. 19 is cool I guess. Kind of a weird feeling. Whatever. There was a small tremor here a few days ago. There was an earthquake somewhere in the jungle. It was pretty cool. I'd never experienced anything quite like it. What else. I guess I'll add a few cultural notes in. Laziness seems to be a rule here. Not usually at work, but in most other parts of life. "Well, we could go to the beach that's about 20 minutes away...but...nah." Stuff like that seems to happen a lot here. I'm totally bored, there's nothing to do, no plans, nothing (Actually, there's plenty to do, if I just go out walking I can make new friends and have a decent conversation, but I'll get to that later), and I may just be listening to music, it's late morning. The day before we might have said "let's go to the beach." And then...it's night, and we still haven't
Mango, Mango, Mango
They're sooooo good. So good. Can't say anything else about them. done anything. Yeah. It grows on you too. You just kind of absorb the laziness. "Well, I could go to my class, or I could take a nap-aggahhh-nap." I've done that a few times. I admit it. Laziness, a general lack of punctuality (a lot of time people don't even show up), little white lies. That's Ecuador. Yeah, a lot of times people don't even show up at all. "Yeah, we're going to go to a concert, be there in half an hour." Half an hour passes "You Coming? No? Awesome." That hasn't happened to me (yet), but I've seen it happen to my sisters quite a bit. Inviting people works two ways: no one shows up, or everyone shows up. You can tell people days in advance and they'll still let the laziness get to them and won't go to an event. Or, they'll all show up and bring 5 people each. That's how a lot of fiestas work. The whole city ends up there. People here are really nice though. You can just walk out into the street and strike up pretty interesting, long conversations with the people that hang out at the different stores and places to
"Danger, Will Robinson!"
Right before I got my face shoved into the cake by Diego. The guy in the orange. eat. That's a plus. Well, I'm really tired. I think I'll take a nap. That's enough for cultural notes. I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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Sonja
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HB
Hey, Happy Birthday Nathaniel!!!!!! Really glad that you are feeling better. Sonja