Rootie Tootie Fresh & Fruity... What is Ecuador?

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Rootie Tootie Fresh & Fruity... What is Ecuador?

Friday, July 4, 2008 at 10:19pm

A few days ago I ate this...

Well... not really. More like this..

They look similar don't they?
The first picture is of an alien looking animal called a lamprey. Lamprey's live in the ocean and suck.
Read about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lampreys

The second picture is of an alien looking fruit called a taxo. Taxos live in Ecuador and taste bad.

Ok... not bad... just sour. Supposedly they are great in milk shakes.

Read about them here: http://www.answers.com/topic/banana-passionfruit

Apparently in the US, Taxo's are called "Banana Passionfruit"... I thought that was just the name of a made up Starburst flavor...

I guess it does exist.

The reason for trying the man-eating-alien-lamprey-passion fruit ("taxo" for short) was because my school had a fruit break-out session in between classes. They let us try out various fruits native to Ecuador.

There was (from left to right):
chirimoya - green outside with sweet mushy insides
taxo - yellow outside with orange, sweet and sour insides and lots of big seeds ("pepas")
tomate de arbole - orangish tomato that is sweet and sour... my favorite
pitajaya - yellow outside with sweet white inside and black seeds, related to the cactus, and a laxative... :-/
uvilla - the small yellow things everywhere, kind of like a sour grape

Enough about fruits... more important things...

LIGA WON! Li Li Li Li Ga Ga Ga Ga Universidad!

It was probably one of the most exciting soccer games I had ever seen.
The game went to double overtimes and a PK shoot out.
Liga won by 2 PKs in the shootout. ¡Que chevere!

Like any Latin American city would after winning a tournament, the people turned to rioting in the streets. Luckily I was there to witness it.

People wore flags...

People ran crazy in the streets...

And people held signs up backwards...

I guess they were so drunk (or "happy" as they say here) from the game, they didn't realize their sign was backwards.

The day after Liga won, I decided that I was on a lucky streak...
1) Meeting the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa
2) Meeting the famous mountain climber of Ecuador, Ivan Vallejo
3) Meeting the famous comedian of Ecuador, David Reinaro (aka ¨Cholito")
4) Meeting some old famous soccer player, Ermen Benitez
5) Getting a shadowing job and the President´s personal scrubs at Hospital de Clinicas Pichincha
and
6) Liga winning the tournament for all of South America...

I decided to see push my luck a little further...

Drum roll...
...
...
...
...
...

I bought 2 Lottery tickets for Mr and Mrs Gortaire... :-)

I think its even stranger that the Lotto tickets say to check for the lottery results...
ON MY BIRTHDAY! (tomorrow, July 5... look close).
How odd!?

So tomorrow I turn 24 and maybe a thousand-aire (supposing that Mr and Mrs Gortaire share the winnings with me if they win...)
Fingers crossed everyone!!!