A Very Different Year

About thirty hours ago I left Ecuador for the United States--I spent seventeen days there and it was nowhere near enough. I think that the best part of going was the people I met and the opportunity it gave me to speak Spanish; when I met the family of my friend that I went with I had to rely on my grasp of Spanish to communicate and, slowly but surely, I became better and better at speaking it. This was the first Christmas I didn't spend with my family, though, and I made sure to call them that night (in Ecuador, they celebrate Christmas at midnight). I am already missing the food--my favorite was mote y chicharron and now I'm desperate to find a restaurant that sells that, perhaps in San Francisco.