“Bienvenidos to Pontifica Universidad Catolica Ecuador (PUCE)”

Yesterday evening, we had the official welcome function from PUCE and it was a hoot! Arriving around 7—the invitations said 7, but this is a polychronic culture after all—we settled into the “cocktail dress” event. After a short introduction from the President of the college, we were called by our affiliated organizations through which we came to PUCE and received an embroidered hat and backpack with PUCE’s name. And then the wine began. The waiters who were serving us gave us each a glass of wine (red or white) to begin the night and then the wine kept coming! A few appetizers were passed around (ceviche, empanadas, and shish kabobs). However, the amount of food couldn’t rival the amount of alcohol being given away and glass after glass, the waiters kept filling up our glasses.

After everyone started dancing and loosening up, Cuba Libres came out as well! This function was hilarious in the fact that it was just an excuse to drink an outrageous amount of alcohol and the entire faculty to see the students as such. I can definitely say that I was drunk at the end of the function, out on the dance floor not caring about much. When the function ended around 11:30pm, most of the students headed down to the Mariscal and continued to dance the night away until 2 or 3am.