Our first task at the orphanage today was to organize the food pantry. Sian and I organized milk products, oatmeal, pasta, and cooking oil. We rocked it. Max and Roberto had to move these gigantic bags of rice and sugar into the bag room, and they also rocked it. Despite the fact that I was sneezing the whole time (I've caught quite the cold!), we had a good time.

After organizing, Vanessa asked me if I would help her do laundry. She's 16 years old, originally from Colombia, and wonderful! She loaded up the wet clothes onto me, and then we went outside to hang them up. I taught her a bit of English, and she taught me how to say "cool" in spanish: "Chevere" (sp?).

It was a beautiful day; the perfect day for a basketball game! But holy crap. I'm not really in shape as it is, and playing basketball full court at whatever crazy altitude we're at here in Quito...phew! It was quite the work-out. It was boys against girls (plus Max), and the boys knocked us out of the water. Next time, though! Next time I'll be ready! Just you wait til I get used to this altitude!

Well, our time was finished at Fundacion Ganas, and so Sian and I went to lunch. I ordered some sort of vegetable soup, and Sian ordered the chicken soup. The waitress brought us our soups. To our initial shock, Sian had a chicken foot in her soup! Oh, my goodness. Sian and I started giggling. Of course, the woman at our table noticed and laughed at us. It didn't help that Sian kept trying to fork it so that she could take a picture of it, and it kept slipping off. After things kinda settled, the woman's family showed up. She put her hand up to her mouth and "secretly" pointed at us, explaining to them the whole ordeal. Sian and I just looked back at her and laughed, and then she openly started talking about us and laughing. Oh, chicken feet!

Okay, so after chicken foot soup, we caught the bus to Mitad del Mundo. Yes, you guessed it. We were going to the freaking MIDDLE OF THE EARTH!!! We met up with one of Sian's friends from Spanish School at one of our stops. Well, the middle of the freaking earth was pretty amazing. There's a "fake" middle of the earth which was built without GPS a few years back. There's this really cool monument and things to buy and restaurants where you can basically decide which hemisphere you would like to have dinner on (I mean, figuratively of course, because it's the "fake" middle of the earth). SO, we took some awesome touristy photos, then went on a mission to find the FOR REAL middle of the earth (a.k.a. equator).

We asked a few people who pointed us in the right direction. We arrived at this really cool little museum situated on the ecuator. We paid three bucks to get in, and our tour guide showed us around. It started out with him showing us some gigantic python (dead!) or whatever it is you find in the Amazon, a gigantic worm (also dead!), and a shrunken head (real!). There was also a stuffed baby sloth, which made me very sad. Sloths are for being alive and cute! (Ugh, just thinking about sloths makes me so anxious to get to the jungle!)

He then led us around and showed us some replicas of totem poles one would find throughout the world, a recreation of a tomb for the important people in the Incan community, and then we got to take pictures on the ecuator. It was SO fun, and we had such a good time at the MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING EARTH.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome day! Until next time...