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Published: February 28th 2007
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Ohh The Noise!
Me and Sophie at 7AM, disgusted at the noise awaking us.... ....Yus, and if you have never heard that Hot Chip song you will not have the tune stuck in your head now...
Hehehehehehehe
Anyway, there is a slight link there. At the back of the house that im living in, there is a boys school. You can see their playground from the balcony.( And do not get misconceptions here, it is not the type of balcony you can relax and enjoy your morning coffee on...) If I havent already mentioned it, every morning, no not morning, every time the sun begins to rise ever so slightly, yus, about 630 AM, A screeching wailing alarm goes off, it actually sounds like an air raid alarm from WW2, I thought it was some kind of nuclear bomb alert the first time I heard it, dont think Ive ever shot out of bed so quickly. Immediately after this alarm, a thundering of drums begin, then more drums, then these trumpets that only have the ability to make one horrible note, then finally, the vertical glockenspiel joins in. And this continues.....all day..yes thats right, if you go to ecuadorian school at this time of year, you spent all day marching up and down the playground,
Chicos
The school boys making the offending noise... making a hell of a lot of noise. And the reason for these celebrations? Yesterday was "Flag Day". Yep...flag day. Something to do with the end of a war....to be honest, the ecuadorians dont really need much of an excuse for a celebration or festival. In fact, Ive been here a week and a half, and theres already been 5 days worth of national holidays.
So yesterday was the big day, and i gained from the festivities, so I cant complain! Instead of learning subjunctive, we got to go watch a nearby schools parade thing....you should have seen the outfits! (actually you should be able to...) Bearing in mind these are strict catholic schools, and there was a little group of nuns watching over the celebrations.
Anyway, muchos fun was had by all.
Later in the day, we decided to be cultural and spiritual and all that, so we went to the massive Cathedral in the old town, which kinda sits slanted on a hill. It is amazingly beautiful, the architecture is ace, and instead of gargoyles on the outside, it has strange galapagos island type creatures, very cool. Well the main attraction of this cathedral for
Cheerleaders
In their cheerleading get up most people, is the fact that you can go right up into the highest spire, and the views over Quito are panoramic. Of course when i was at the bottom I thought what an extremely good idea, and we clambered into the lift, to the third floor. Then things got a little sketchy...
To get to this spire, you have to walk across this rickety wooden bridge, to this ladder, yep vertical ladder, which takes you outside, to this amazing view. After a while , we managed to get take some pictures, and I was very ready to come down. But walking round the spire, there were more stairs...or what were an excuse for stairs, more like ladders, with nothing beneath them , except the 65 metres of nothing to the ground. So whilst sophie leapt up them, I stayed firmly pressed against the middle of the spire, grinning manically, where no sudden gust of wind could blow me over the edge. And I thought that heights didnt bother me. This has certainly been a learning experience so far...
Oooo and the fun did not end there, you could get into the clock tower! So off we trotted,
And the band
Look at them go! (With their vertical glockenspiels..) but this time the stairs were inside, so for some reason I felt a lot better about it. 75.3 metres high. Mklereg.
Obviously, It was a very exciting but traumatic day. I needed a good sleep. Cant remember if Ive mentioned this, but me sophie and kat share a room, and me and sophie share this double bed. Its quite big, so we dont usually meet during the night. However last night, probably due to our traumatic day, we both seemed to be having quite vivid dreams, tossing and turning. At one point, sophie hit me, asking me, sounding very worried, " Are you Sophie, or are you Jack???" Jack is one of the guys here with us, but he was definately not in our bed. Apparently, sophie dreamt that he had crawled in with us.
Ahh dear. Sophie is also the most active sleep talker Ive ever met, so sleep is often interrupted by a crazy conversation or too. Last night was a very talkative night, even for her....
....It was no surprise when we both woke up this morning, very fuzzy, feeling like we hadnt actually slept.
Worth it for the amusement though!
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anonymous
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jesus soph... i got dizzy just thinking about your journey to the spire! and i thought the unfinished cathedral in barcelona was bad! which i might add before then i didn't know how scared of heights i really was either... and stairs... oh the nightmares of falling down stairs! sounds amazing though and the picture of the view looks amazing! glad your having loads of fun and you've met some real nice people to share your crazy experiences with! hehe marching band poor you 6.30 :O and you write about your adventures so well... should write a book about the real equador from these blogs! well done deary! hehe take care... love ya x