Happy New Year!

Well, tomorrow I´m off to Cuenca. I have my orientation on Friday and start teaching on Monday.

The last week has been FULL of celebrations and what-not. Christmas Eve there was a program at the church, then we had a big turkey dinner at the house. A bunch of the extended family came over and we exchanged gifts and set off firecrackers. Christmas Day, the tradition is to go swimmng, so I headed off to a river and pool in a nearby town. It was actually cloudy and COOL, so we got pretty chilled, but it was still fun.

New Year´s Eve, we went to the Grandparents´house where we brought in the New Year by blowing up the old one. That´s the tradition here--they make paper-mache characters (año viejos) to represent the previous year, then, at midnight they set them on fire in the middle of the street. In the afternoon we went around the city to look at some of the año viejos--some of them are HUGE, more than 3 stories high! Actually, in the hours leading up to midnight, they set off a ton of firecrackers, so by the end your ears are ringing from all the noise.