Surviving the third week

Kära vänner,

I am really happy. Things have really started to go my way now (even if it didn’t really go someone elses way before either). One reason is that I finally have been to the very equator line and seen what happens to water there. Does it whirl clockwise, counter-clockwise or does it just stop? Stay with me and I will let you know.

I have also just managed my way through the Mythical Third Week. As you faithful readers of this diary (my first one that is) already know the Third Week is always the worst. The first week is normally overwhelmed with impressions and things to take care of, the second week is when you start exploring the city and get to know the place and the third week is when you normally encounter the first problems and get the first strike of homesickness.

I have had my fair share of homesickness this week, especially since it is Easter. Although the worst was probably when I was sitting at a cafe yesterday and suddenly they were playing a melody I knew really well. It was the same melody as we have on a little “speldosa” (help me with translating this please) in the bathroom on our countryhouse on Ã…land. I know 90 % of you wont have an idea what I am talking about but the rest of you will probably understand how emotional this was.

However, the best thing with this week was that I found somewhere to live. I was on my way over to a pretty skanky hostel to pay $120 a month for a room with very spartaneous cooking abilities. On the way over I found a note about an apartment and at the apartment I found my new home (for $90 a month!)! So, right now I am living in the Beverly Hills of Quito with a 150 degree view over the old town (I will put up pictures soon) and together with Maryann from Florida, Linda from Switzerland, Vanessa from Ecuador and Harry from Ecuador. Maryann is a 40 something American that has given up hope about America and moved down to Ecuador for good to sell handicrafts. Linda works at a travel agency and has promised to give me a good price for a jungle trip. Vanessa also works at a travel agency and has promised to give me a good price for Merida, Venezuela that is the very location of my good friends Calle & Johanna. Harry is a four weeks old adorable kitten that is called Gary by i t’s owner Vanessa. I told her pets are supposed to be named Harry or Ludvig von Lederhosen and rebaptized him. Yesterday, me and my new room mates had a easter dinner, lit up a fire in the fire stove, drank some red wine and stayed up a little bit too late. Really nice!

The social part has been the worst part of the trip so far. Märta and I have been hanging out very much without friction but we haven’t met that many other people. So when we were hanging out at a internet cafe the other day I found a note saying “Buscamos Suecos (We are looking for Swedes)”. It was an Equatorian guy and a French girl living in Quito that wanted to get to know some Swedes and Swedish since they were moving to Stockholm in August. We found another Swede at the internet cafe pretty much by accident and brought her as well for a couple of coffee with them. Kind of a bizarre afternoon but we were in desperate need of company, and needless to say it was really nice.

The least nice thing that occurred this week was to find out that my Beverly Hills has it’s backside. Yesterday I was harrassed by two guys at the bus station that came up to me and obviously wanted to rob me. It was at broad daylight! I finally managed to get rid of them by taking a bus (in which they followed me in) and then a taxi. It wasn’t really scary but very discomforting.

This Saturday I was at the nothern hemisphere (sw. norra halvklotet) and looked at a marvellous crater there with our other professor Edy. The crater is the only habitated crater in the world and I guess the Equatorians are just a little bit tougher than me! Then we went down to the equatorian line (sw. ekvatorn), or actually the ecuatorian lines. They haven’t really agreed which line is the correct one. It was kind of cool though. We saw a fake presentation of the Coreolis effect, that is the force that makes the water whirl in different directions in the different hemispheres. Just on the very exact ecuator line the water just fell straight down without a whirl! It looked really weird… I will show you video evidence when I get back home.

Over and ut, chokladstrut!