In Quito.

I am officially in Quito. Well, I have been for the last few days.

It´s been pretty awesome, but also really busy. There are 37 of us and everyone is really cool. But we´re talking about 12 hours of work a day.

A typical day consists of waking up at 6:15, having desayuno with my very old and precious host parents (which consists of pan, bananas, cafe con leche y jugo), taking the bus to the hotel for classes, almuerzo of a couple hours (at a lot of places 3 courses - soup, main entree with rice, meat, and vegetables, and postre, and juice - all for about 2 or 3 dollars), classes for a couple hours, go home on the bus, have dinner with Victor y Mercedes (host families), struggle to speak Spanish with them, have Victor demonstrate how ladrones steal on the bus, watch some Spanish TV, have Victor y Mercedes laugh at my attempts to speak spanish and then pass out.

Today we saw Old Quito, which is gorgeous. I´ll try to post pictures soon (when I don´t have to go to an internet cafe - who knows when that will be). Tomorrow, I´m taking the bus to Ibarra to speak to my host family and the director of the school. I´m pretty nervous. But stay there for most of the weekend and then return to Quito.

I also got an Ecuadorian cell phone. Email me for the number.

So far I´m loving Ecuador and I haven´t gotten any altitude sickness or stomach issues. YAY! Go me! And I´m loving seeing the Andes every morning. They´re right there and beautiful.

Missing everyone!