weekend getaway to quito

this past weekend..me and amy...a sweet girl from england who is staying here for 3 months...took a little getaway to quito.....it was good to get away...and get back into the "real world." its weird...bc in quito, people are dressed up and dressed nice....and us "shell" people are in our rags and "country" clothes...its a big difference...living in shell, you kinda forget there are civilized and upscale people in the world...which is kind of nice to escape from...but its just a little shock when you havent been to a "real" city in a few months. going to quito is nice bc its like a small taste of america...a lot of quito is really developed and if you were in some places, you would forget that you are in a 3rd world country...i really dont understand it..bc there are 3 really nice malls in quito with stores like: Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Liz Claiborne, SUnglass Hut, Diesel, Addidas, United Colors of Beneton....etc...these stores are expensive in teh states and they all the clothes are marked up 20% here bc they are all imported...i have one question...how in the world can the ecuadorians afford these clothes? i cant even afford them....how can they...when they make a significantly lesser salary???i dont get it! anyways...its still nice to see familiar stores...

but all of the stores are not truly genuine..because you will see signs like..
"sunglass HOT" instead of sunglass HUT
Chuck Jaylor instead of Chuck Taylor

which is pretty humourous...its like, if youre going to make a sign...cant you get the english right?! :) just some unique things about Ecuador..its kind of odd how much they look up to Americans..they think we have it all...and many of them think the lighter skin that you have, the higher class you are...and the darker skinned Ecuadorians are usually poorer bc they are the indigenous indians (im not racist..im just saying their point of view)...its interesting...many ecuadorians will wear shirts with English writing on them just because it has English on it...but usually the shirt sayings make absolutely no sense at all! bc people have tried to translate and its all wrong....and the sayings on these shirts are somtimes horrible...but they dont even know or care really what it says...as long as its in English...maybe for that moment they wear the shirt..they might feel a little cooler...who knows. but dont we do the same thing? its just not as obvious for us...we do it in more subtle ways.

have an outstanding day!