this is genius.

For those of you who dont know this is an example of stop motion photography, a cinematic technique of making still objects appear as though they were moving. AKA you shoot a bunch of pictures,  edit/string them together, and you have a mini movie.. except not taped with a video camera.
I want to do something like this.. except MUCH simpler.

a few things i´m looking forward to

With a little over a week left.. its hard to not think about ALL the things I´m looking forward to when I get home/get back to school. Yes, I will try and enjoy the rest of my time here in Ecuador and not look TOO much into the near future... but here´s the list anyway.

1. Starting my 365 day project on my 21st birthday.

2. My 21st Birthday in general!

3. Being reuinted with all my friends. (especially Ms. Sarah Korzun. She was abroad all of fall semester, and we saw each other for a mere 3 days before I eventually went out of the country. Finally we will be in the same country/same state/15 minutes away from each other for the WHOLE year!)

4. Experiencing "summertime" in Syracuse & seeing everyone you know on the quad, the first few weeks of school.

5. Using my SLR camera again! (The MINUTE I get back to the states) 

6. Attempting to use full manual settings (vs. the aperture or shutter setting) alot more on my camera

7. The Garage Sales I´m going to try and go to before life gets crazy busy. 

8. Thrift Stores! (unlike Garage Sales, they´re open everyday!)

9. An iced green tea latte
.
10. PANDORA (it doesnt work outside of the US)

11. Reading the Twilight series again (judge me)

12. Finishing the Harry Potter series (I stopped at book 5 my senior year of highschool when life got "too busy")

13. Possibly doing the "100 Strangers Project."  

Explanation of this project: So I was blog surfing (yup, I made that a phrase) and I came across this one and learned how she was attempting to take a picture of one stranger per week for a year. It reminded me of a flickr site a came along time ago that I immediately fell in love with after seeing each picture and reading the stories behind them. SO I´m thinking about doing my own "find a stranger, ask them a few questions, and take a photo" project.  I want to say I´ll do it once a week... but I think I´d rather just do it at my leisure until I reach 100. And then at the end put the photos together in some super cool way.. (a photo album or a video.. or maybe both!) I have to say though I´m a bit nervous. Everyone thinks I´m super outgoing.. but I promise, I can be as shy as they come. Any which way.. I´m excited to go out of my comfort zone and get a some photo-journalistic photos.

There are many other things, but these are the ones I could think of right now

from my co-intern´s perspective

..a few pictures from her camera..

Remember when it was SO cool to be a fan of Barney when you were a5 years old..and then when you reached 2nd grade Barney was suddenly the LAMEST thing ever and you were teased relentlessly for having anything that represented you still enjoyed him.Well I say he´s cool again.
We found this costume in a  party store while walking the streets of Cuenca a few weeks ago, and we just had to take a picture with him..

Me. Ziplining in Mindo. Doing what the guy called the "supergirl" pose.

..on bargaining.
- If you have ever traveled to a foreign country with me, you know that i am the worst bargainer ever. The thing is.. I´m super indecisive. So when I shop I take a pretty long time to decide I want a certain item... so for me to want to buy an item, I must really really want it.. AKA its super hard for me to fake the whole... "not interested look" so that the person I´m bargaining with will put his price lower. When they offer me a price.. I say "okay" and I begin to pull out my money. I know.. the complete wrong approach to buying things outside of the US. Thats why whenever I travel.. I have someone else do the bargaining for me. This time it happened to be Sharada... she can coach anyone on bargaining. Check her blog for her ways! 

...on Ecuadorian buses. 
- So we take the bus to work everyday.  And we have our fair share of stories from our little commutes. One time a guy asked me if this bus goes to such-and-such a place.. and I replied with an "I dont know" and a smile...Well,  I don´t know if it was the fact that I didnt know the bus route or if he heard my American accent in the two words of "No se".. but all of a sudden he was asking me where I was from, telling me I looked like his wife, asking me to translate an english voicemail he had on his phone, etc. etc. 
Thats one of my favorite bus stories... here is one of Sharadas´s

truth that will hopefully keep me sane as SENIOR year approaches.

But I am trusting you, O Lord, saying,   
`You are my God!` My future is in your hands.

   - Psalm 31:14-15  
           (New Living Translation)

¡ Banos !

We spent the past weekend in Banos...  a town that boasts of its hot springs, waterfalls, volcanoe, and amazing scenery.

Because its a town nearby a volcanoe it has these signs on the road everywhere. It reminded me of this one movie I saw in 7th grade about a volcanoe that errupts and everyone has to leave, and theres lava pouring everywhere and they try and save a dog. (I forgot the name of it haha).

The first day we got there it was raining, so instead of exploring the city by foot, we took a Taxi tour. haha.

The tour was a tour of the different waterfalls in Banos. 

And at one of the waterfalls you were able to take this cable car thing between mountain ledges!

 On the other side of the mountain I found this pretty flower..

 And a super call skeleton of a leaf..

A different waterfall called..... "something Novios"

Then later that night after dinner we did a "night tour" of the city.. (pictures of course dont do justice. Its super hard to capture anything at night with a point and shoot. I know I keep complaining about my use of my point and shoot..but its true!)

Part of the tour was seeing these pretty cool fire dancer men..

Here´s a video (not the best quality but you get the idea)

And then the next day we started off the day with me BUNGEE JUMPING. Thats right, I said BUNGEE JUMPING. (Well not technically bungee jumping, the cord doesnt spring you back up.. you actually swing on it.. but you jump off a bridge just like you would if you were bungee jumping.. so thats what I´m going to call it). So we get to the bridge, and I swear my heart dropped to my toes. This bridge was SO FLIPPING HIGH! Oh my goodness, I wish I remembered to take a picture of the bridge itself... because it was huge. We did however get a few shots of me about to jump..

 See this picture. This is when I looked down and began to think that there was no possible way I could do this..

 So I sat down to catch my breath and get some (useless) encouragement from the guy who was doing my equipment

 See the guy in the orange jacket holding up his hands... this was him telling me that he will help me by pushing me on 3 (because really there was no other way I was going to get myself off the ledge). I agreed and WENT for it. Let me tell you... SCARIEST THING OF MY LIFE! It was kind of fun at the end.. but mostly scary.

 Unfortunately we didnt get a video/photos of me actually jumping.. because Sharada said I jumped "too fast" haha. But no worries.. I went again..and this time we got a video.. look out for it at the end of the post!

After bunjee jumping as we walked through town we saw this guy making this gum like thing. I forgot the name.. something like "maracuchcu." He let us try some for free (it was gross) and also let me take a video/picture of him!

 And heres the video:

Then we decided to do another tour of waterfalls but this time on GO KARTS! We got to drive on the highway and everything! I was the one driving..and it was so much fun! Now I can say I´ve driven in a foreign country (and I´ll just skip out the part about it not acutally being a real car).  

Here´s a video:

And as we were go karting it back to town.. we stopped at a much smaller bridge so I could go BUNGEE JUMPING AGAIN... but this time so we could at least attempt and get a video. haha. Yes Ladies & Gents I paid to go again.. all because I wanted to get a video and a few more pics..

Let me tell you how much MORE I enjoyed this second bridge. First off, it was way smaller (in height), secondly the guys were much nicer and way less pushy in getting me off the bridge, third I acutally ENJOYED the jump.. versus the first bridge where I just felt complete and utter fear.

And here´s the video. I´m realizing now we should have taped it from a different angle.. but thats okay, you can kind of get the idea from picture. Oh man, it was so much fun. Anyone considering Bunjee Jumping (or the kind of pseudo version I did) should DEFINITELY DO IT!

I have crossed off two things on my life list (that I still need to write down).. learn how to Salsa Dance and Bungee Jumping. Woo hoo! :)

Highlights from Week 6

(july 18-24)
Wednesday: Sharada knows some people from her school doing service work here in Quito. And they invited us to go salsa dancing with them! Before we went we decided to eat at this one resturant because of the way it was amazingly decorated. Well let me tell you.. what you see, is what you pay for. This place was so ridiculously over priced for such small portions. You live and you learn.

After our meal it was off to the Salsa Club. Let me tell you, SO MUCH FUN! I cannot wait to do it again. The pictures are a bit dark &  doesnt do the night justice.. but here they are anyway. 

Thursday Caro invited us to watch a Liga (one of the main teams in Quito) socer game! Her family has a box in the stadium, so we had great seats!

Liga Fans are absolutely nuts! They were on their feet and jumping up and down the entire game. Here´s a video after Liga scored a goal.

I didn´t get great pics of the acutal players playing because the box was so high... but here are a few (blurry because of the zoom).

And here`s a picture of us girls (Caro, Sharda, myself and Caro´s cousin Dani) after the game. The flash made it a bit weird..

Friday: We went to this tiny (indie) movie theather called Ocho & Medio  and saw this movie called Gringuito. I loved it (both the movie and the theater)! It was also all in spanish.. and I understood the majority of it! It´s so awesome to see how my spanish has improved in terms of understanding the language.. now if only my speaking skills would catch up.

I´ll write about our weekend trip to Banos, in the next post!

week 5 of Ecuador

As much as I love blogging.. sometimes its so hard (and annoying) to continually document your life. I love living my life and taking photos while I do it...but sometimes I just dont make time to actually post it all..and then it piles up, and then I get annoyed that I have SO much to remember/blog, etc. etc.
Thats whats going through my mind right now.. but you probably dont want to hear that. I´ll just suck it up, and  update on Week 5 of Ecuador

W returned from Cuenca late Tuesday night..  so our 5th week was kind of short and kind of uneventful..
Wednesday: After work we went to visit Old Quito again...  with Caro and some of her friends. We ate at this resturant that had an amazing view of the city. After our first trip there, we were told that the city is more beautiful at night.. agreed! Once again my pictures from my point & shoot.. doesnt do the real view justice. But enjoy anyhow.

Friday: We went to go see Eclipse. (Special thanks to Sharada.. she did NOT want to see this movie, but she came with me anyway!) So in Ecuadorian movie theaters.. you pick where you want to sit. When it was our turn to buy our tickets/pick our seats.. the only seats left where in the very first row. AKA I would have had to strain my neck as I watched Bella, Edward, and Jacob on screen. So we didnt buy the seats and stepped out of line.... then two seconds later a super nice Ecuadorian girl came up to us and asked if we wanted to buy the tickets Eclipse tickets she just bought, because she didnt want to see it anymore! I asked her where the seats were and she said "mas atras" (aka in the BACK). I gladly accepted!
As for what I thought of the movie.. I wasnt a HUGE fan of it. I didnt think it was very much like the book at all.. and I´m a big fan of the books, so I wasnt too pleased. My friend Sarah says its because I didnt see it with her. She´s probably right! hehe. 
Saturday : We ventured off to Otovalo... a town that has a HUGE market where you can get lost for hours.. look at a ton of Ecuadorian handmade products (alpaca blankets, hammocks, paintings, purses, etc. etc). We left early in the morning, spent the WHOLE day there, and finished all of our soveunir shopping for our friends & family! Oh how I love shopping!!
I didnt bring my camera because Lonely Planet said pickpocketing is popular there. I wish I did though, as I saw several people with huge SLR camers.. but I did bring the small Flip camera (that the CARE USA office lent us) and got to take one video of this guy chopping the heck out of a coconut.

I also just realized that with this flip camera.. you´re able to freeze the video for a picture. So here´s a small/not so great picture of a tiny section of the market

Sunday: We visted the Mitdad del Mundo. (Middle of the World). For those of you who don´t know.. Ecuador is one of the countries that lies on the Equator.. and they are proud of it!  They built a huge monument to show it off. Surrounding the monument you can find.. live music, resturants, sovunier shops and tons & tons of tourists/Ecuadorian familes out for a Sunday visit.

 SERIOUSLY though.. how amazing is the Ecuadorian sky?

 When a stranger is the only person you have to take your photo.. you get what you get.

The sun kind of ruined this picture..

Favorite

My whole body.. in two different hemispheres. 

Then I had the bright idea to try and accomplish a jumping picture. Why? Because then my body would be in the middle of the world AND the middle of the air, of course! The only problem.. I´m not quite used to the continuous shot on my point and shoot (like I am with my SLR that is back in the states). So there were many, many attempts..

A candid and slightly embarassing photo of me in between my jumping attempts. (PS- Dulc, does that hand remind you of anything? hehe)

This is my favorite, when my shoe fell off..

And finally...

Then I wanted to climb the monument for a picture.. but as soon as I started a security woman came out and yelled at me. Heres some pictures of my failed attempt..

So we went to the other side (where there no people/securty guard) and quickly snapped some photos.. muhahaha. 

Then we tried to go & find the "real" middle of the world (apparently the exact coordinates of 0º Longitude and 0º Latitude is not where the monument is.. they only built it there because there was more space I guess.) But it was closed.. so we looked at a few stores and headed home!