I will admit that the thing I am looking forward to the most when I get back home is some good, processed, junk food. It seems strange, because I like the food in Ecuador, and am almost always willing to be adventurous and try new foods. But that sense of adventure is exactly the problem. I rarely feel as though I can just gulp down anything placed in front of me, secure in the knowledge of exactly what it is and what it will taste like. The classic foods from home will allow me to eat with that security intact, and that security is what I really miss.

     I think the thing I will miss the most about Ecuador is the sense of adventure that I could feel every time I left the house, whether it was just to class at the academia or to some other attraction. I loved the feeling that I was going to see new sights, experience new things, and accomplish something impressive every day. The quote that struck me today, as we were leaving the Academia, is a classic one by J.R.R. Tolkien, speaking through his character Bilbo Baggins: “It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road and, if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
      I think I was channeling that quote this afternoon when I stepped out my door to go to the bakery for one last taste of a chocolate pastry. This time, as I walked, I crossed to the opposite side of the road than I usually took and passed through a plaza that I usually skirted around. On the way back, instead of scurrying back to my house, I walked past it, deciding that I would turn around when I was finished with my treat. I past a beautiful school building that I had never seen before, and eventually found myself in front of Mama Clorinda’s restaurant, in the middle of the club district that I had only seen at night before. I was amazed at how close it was to my house. I walked a single block from Mama Clorinda’s and I could see the intersection where my house was located.
      Seeing this made me realize just how little of this amazing city I had explored and learned about. Off the top of my head, I never got to the bottom of why Abraham Lincoln Plaza bore that name, or how to pronounce “Panificadora,” or who the statue of a cavalryman that I passed every day depicted and why he was important.  I am going to miss the sense that every day I will see something new, and learn a little more. Of course I will search for that feeling at home, but I know it will be much harder.

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