My Rotary dinner was a success! I didn't plan it out well- almost everything required the help of my hornito- the toaster oven- so it was complicated serving everything warm at the same time. Although my scalloped potatoes were a bit milky (I wanted to make sure that there was enough liquid to cook the potatoes so they wouldn't be raw!) and my host Rotarian admitted that he doesn't eat many vegetables (my green bean casserole went untouched on his plate, although his wife loved it!), everything turned out really well. The biggest hit was the apple/strawberry/pear/mango crumble that I served for dessert! I really lucked out- this Rotarian couple is really nice, and I enjoyed getting to talk to them a bit more. They also brought me some hand stitched coasters and a hand stitched piece for a bread basket, which was sweet.
It's been a period of high Rotary activity for me because I went to my Rotary club's meeting on Monday to give a brief presentation. The point of the presentation is to introduce myself and the scholarship to the Rotarians (what I'm studying, where, thesis ideas, etc.) and to explain a bit about my background and sponsoring Rotary district. I created a visual powerpoint presentation, and showed them pictures of Vancouver, WA and the surrounding beauty, as well as my family and some pictures from my travels. I explained a bit about what I liked about Quito/Ecuador (focusing heavily on foods), and everything seemed to go over well. I'm glad I made the photo Powerpoint- everyone liked seeing pictures from my travels, and they were unsurprisingly very excited to see a picture of Rachel ("¡son idénticas!"). The only bummer was that they served lasagna- usually a favorite- filled with meat so I akwardly poked around at it and tried to eat the top cheesy part without the meat getting stuck to the pasta- difficult.
Next Thursday I'm heading to their major benefit, which is a concert with music from the 1970s. But it should be a pretty big deal- they've sold 800+ tickets!
Otherwise, I've been working on classwork like usual. On Sunday I took a break to get out and participate in the Ciclopaseo- they close one of the major North-South heading streets in Quito from 9am-2pm for just bikers and a few pedestrians. It was great, and I used the bike that my host Rotarians kindly loaned me. I saw all sorts of funny things- for example, at least half a dozen small dogs in bike baskets! including one who was (I swear I'm not making this up) wearing sunglasses. Oh, Latin Americans and their dog accessory-intensive culture! Pictures (sadly not of the visually protected dog) coming soon to show the popularity of the ride- tons of bikes on the streets, which was great!
nooooooo how could we both miss the opportunity to take pictures of sunglasses-wearing dogs? After a hike in East Bay, I saw a chocolate lab wearing Ray-Bans with his head out the window and couldn't get to my camera fast enough!
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