Day 3- Mas de Quito

Our day started when we went to the "Antiguo Hospital Militar " to the exposicion Mariano retro where we saw a lot of paintings of famous ecuadorian artist like Guayasamin and Kingman. I went with Lucia and her cousin Fran and we were having such a good time interpreting the artwork and laughing. I really liked the indegenous work by Kingman who was born in the south of Ecuador in Loja. The white facade of the building was beautiful.
Then Lucia's brother picked us up and we drove to the center plaza in the rain and had really good beans and rice. It typical for people to eat corn with mayonnaise and cheese so we tried that and had maduro, which is fried banana/plantain (which I also had first in Nicaragua).
Next, we headed to the Museo de Cera and waited outside and took some fun pictures. We took a tour and learned about the history of Ecuador with wax figures of famous people (cera is wax). After that we walked across the way to El Palacio Presidencial and took pictures with the guards out front. Very funny! Just like the guards from Buckingham Palace in London but they moved more here.
Igalito, the brother, wanted to take us to el Cementerio de San Juan which was up on the hill- surprisingly they all had never been there before but it is one of the most famous cemeteries where the presidents and everyone is buried. It was beautiful in the rain. So it was Lu and Fran and Igalito who are cousins and then Fran's boyfriend Esteban and myself. We were drenched by the end.
After the cemetery we went to a shopping center because the girls wanted to get their nose pierced like mine, so I wanted to go with them, but the place was closed unfortunately. So we headed to El centro comercial, another big shopping center, and had Dunkin Donuts coffee and donuts- I never thought I would go to one in Ecuador only in Boston. I gave the girls CharlieCards to take the T in Boston because they said they wanted to come visit me- they are soo cute!
From there we headed home for dinner with everyone, they had beef and rice and french fries with some side chopped veggies. Then we chatted for a while with the Dad, and friends who came over and Melba who came home from work super tired- the eldest sister then Leslie, Lucia, Fran, Igalito, and Esteban and I went to Plaza Force for some karaoke! We ended up not singing but it was deifnitely fun! They have good beer here too like Pilsener and Club- both made in Ecuador.