A tough day of arguing

It's clearly a dramatic title but today was very trying to say the least. We woke up in our smaller room, happy that we had not been disturbed by the construction going on next door. We went downstairs, had our breakfast and lounged around the hostel for a while since we didn't have to check out until 12:00. Before we needed to check out, we headed to the laundry place down the street to inquire about Alyssa's missing jacket. The lady who worked there said that she knew who had it and that she would call them and get the jacket back. When we asked what would happen if she couldn't get in touch with them, she avoided the subject saying that it was no problem and that she would bring the jacket to our hostel since we were planning to be gone for the afternoon. This seemed suspect to us, but what choice did we have? I had some laundry I needed to do as well but I wasn't about to leave it at this same place so I brought it to another laundromat down the street.
We headed back to the hostel to finish packing and check out. I went downstairs to pay for our stay and the lady told me that we would have to pay $38 for last night instead of the $30 because we changed rooms to one with a bathroom due to the noise disturbance. I very politely reminded her that she was the one who said we could move rooms and said that it would be the same price. She tried to backpedal and say that it would have been the same price for the room with a bathroom on the first floor but not the one on the second floor. By this point I'm pissed and am telling her in broken Spanish (since she speaks no English) that I am absolutely not paying more than $60 for both nights. I took out exactly $60, put it on the counter and put my wallet away. At this point, Alyssa came into the room and after learning what the situation was, she was just as angry and adamant that we would not be paying more. We now had an issue though. We were supposed to leave our bags at the hostel while we went out for the day but now we didn't feel like they would be safe there. We grabbed our stuff and left, deciding that we would just have to figure it out.
We then headed back to the laundromat to see if the lady had found the jacket. She was surprised to see us again and with our backpacks. We said that we had to leave now and that we needed the jacket. She said that she had called the hotel of the other person that had the jacket but that they were on a trek and wouldn't be back for four days. We said that we were leaving that afternoon and that obviously four days was not going to work. What would have happened if we had not come back to check on things? She would have brought nothing to our hostel and the laundromat would have closed at 5:00, leaving us screwed. This was exactly what she had hoped would happen. Instead, we told her that she would have to pay for the jacket. Alyssa said the jacket cost at least $40, so we asked for $30. The lady pleaded with us asking us at first not to charge her and then for her only to pay $20. Knowing that we would have to buy Alyssa a new rain jacket since it rains here everyday and it is a complete necessity and that we would likely have to go searching for it and it would be a major inconvenience AND that you cannot buy a rain jacket for $20, we held our ground firmly at $30. We argued for at least 30 minutes (in Spanish) before Alyssa and I had enough. We had said it as many ways as possible but she still would not yield. We told her it was her fault not ours, that she would be held responsible and there would be no discussion. She finally gave in and gave us the $30. Now, to everyone who thinks we were mean for making the poor Ecuadorian woman pay us- they use the US dollar here and things are just as expensive as in the states. They have money, they just try to con Americans into believing they don't to get what they want. I'm over it.
Now that we had our money, we needed to find a place for our bags. We headed to another hostel that we knew had good reviews to see if they could hold them for us. The girl there was very nice and agreed to hold them for $1 each. Once we had the bags secured, we headed out to "Mitad del Mundo" which is the monument to the equator outside of Quito.

It was an hour bus ride on their metro-like buses followed by 45 minutes on the local bus. Luckily, that only cost $0.40 in total. I had read reviews of the monument and people said that it was very touristy and wasn't at the actual equator line. The equator was about a block down the street where there was another museum called "The Museo de Sitio Intinan". We decided to head to that museum instead. There was a $4 entrance fee but happily that included our own English speaking guide. We did lots of little experiments at the equator like trying to balance an egg on a nail (you can do it due to the lack of forces at the equator) and watching water empty from a tub and seeing it spin different directions on either side of the line. It was really interesting.

After our time at the museum, we made the two hour journey back to Quito. It began to rain as we walked from the bus station, which was sad since Alyssa no longer had a rain jacket. We stopped at tons of stores as we walked, looking for a new jacket but they were all well over $100. We stopped at a Juan Valdez to get coffee and wait out some of the rain. I ordered a cappuccino with Baileys which was a little more expensive but we had been talking about Baileys and coffee for days and I was really excited to get it. I took one sip and realized that it was not Baileys but Amaretto which I do not like. I took it back the counter and told the barista. I watched the four baristas go over and discuss all of the bottles they had, none of which were Baileys. They made another cappuccino with Cacao syrup which tasted terrible. I was a little annoyed since the coffee cost so much more and they didn't even have Baileys. On the last try, they mixed a bunch of different liquors together and I just gave up and took it. Why offer it on the menu if you don't have it?
We walked up the grocery store to buy cheese, bread, fruit and wine since Brad (Alyssa's boyfriend) was getting into town that night and there wouldn't be any restaurants or stores around where we were staying. Apparently there are two airports in Quito and the new one (that Brad was flying into and we were flying out of the next morning) is an hour and a half outside of Quito. We made a reservation at a hotel next to the airport so that it would be more convenient.
We picked up my laundry (luckily there were no issues and it only cost $2.50 for 4lbs!) and got our bags out of storage. The cab ride out there took a while but luckily traffic wasn't too bad and we had a normal sized car so we weren't crammed in there with our luggage. We arrived at Hosteria San Carlos Tababela with a few hours before Brad's arrival. We had planned to take showers but sadly the water was freezing! You could get it to be warm if you kept it at a slow trickle so it took an hour or us both to shower. The hotel had a shuttle that would pick Brad up from the airport so I let Alyssa go surprise him by herself and I prepared our dinner spread.

Once they got back from the airport, we hung out for a while and then I headed to my dorm to give them some alone time. It was only 11:00pm but someone had been asleep in the dorm since 10:00pm and had turned off the lights and barricaded the door. I was trying to be as quiet as possible getting ready for bed but its practically impossible when everything you own is in a full bag covered in zippers. On top of that, the bunk beds made a ton of noise when you got in them and for some reason the bunks were connected to one another so when one swayed, all the other bunks did as well. This made getting into bed very awkward and once I was in, I didn't want to move at all. I didn't sleep very much as it was cold and drafty and I felt a bit uncomfortable trying to accommodate to so many other sleeping people's needs.

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