¡Cumpleaños feliz!

Okay, I'm one year older, two languages' worth of birthday songs happier, and three cakes fatter.

Yes, that's right, three. One from the office of international relations, one from the lab, and one from the other international students. People here know how to celebrate birthdays.

Tradition #1 is to "morder la torta" ... I managed to escape it until the third cake, when the neighbor boys were like "just take a little bite... a little bite... " and then shoved my face in :).


As you can see, this was taken after this occurred... and after I had mostly cleaned my face off, because they couldn't find my camera. But there's definitely still frosting in my eyebrows.

Luckily, I managed to escape tradition #2, which is a whipping for each year of your life!

This is officially the best-fed birthday of my life. And I have to say an internet THANK YOU to everyone who made it possible, from everyone who wished me happy birthday on Facebook, to everyone who bought cakes (including the lab, who only found out about my birthday yesterday) to Jonathan for the karaoke program and sing-along with my computer, to Joaquin for stopping by even though he has class tomorrow way too early, even to Marcos for shoving my face in the cake :) and to his brothers Brian and Diego for stopping by.

Probably none of them will read this, but the world should know how awesome the people are here. Sets us an example.

Hugs to all! A few photos because I finally took some of the ESPOL...

Jonathan and his friend Marisol, near the pool, where we ate lunch today....

Marianita and me cutting cake #1 (RELEX)

From left: Patricia, Jonathan, Veronica, me, Monica, and Angelo in the lab
Cake #2
Diego, Brian, Marcos (neighbors), Martina, Doreen (Austrians), me
Cake #3.

And... random photo time...

The artificial lake of the ESPOL (Marítima's replacement for the river Guayas,
which runs past the old campus, downtown... the faculty of the sea has to make do with freshwater now)

Monument to the meeting of Simon Bolívar and San Martin in Guayaquil to decide which leader of independence movements got what territory
( I was downtown on Sunday to see a documentary on Cuban son .... I GOT THERE ON MY OWN BY BUS! Jonathan has declared me an honorary guayaquileña.)

Las Peñas de noche... view from the MAAC... the renovated
neighborhood that's the tourist icon of Guayaquil.

Cheo and Luna cooking patacones

And a sunset in the land of bananas... taken from the car-bus on
the way back from El Guabo in southern Ecuador, where we had a meeting
to explain environmental projects and findings to the general populace

:) Hugs to all

Michele