First Few Days

Wow, is there ever so much to say so far. Let's start from the very beginning of the trip.

I started off talking on the baby plane from Grand Rapids to Chicago to a 59 year old man named David who was so excited for me to go on my journey and he was off to Paris in a few days. Talked about health and it was just good from the beginning.

Then I got to the airport, found Ben (he's the guy from Michigan State in my program and I traveled down with) and we flew to Miami, spent some time there and said some goodbyes. Then I was about to cry and freak out as we were in line to board the plane; I wanted to turn around immediately and go home. But I didn't. On the flight from Miami to Quito, we sat next to an Ecuadorian woman living in New York named Liz who was traveling home for a few weeks. We talked to her in Spanish, trying to say what we could and were asking her all sorts of questions about customs, food, etc. She kept assuring us that our Spanish was strong, that we knew enough to get by and would quickly learn more. That was very helpful and made me feel a bit better, but I was still leaving everything I knew for 4 months. Our flight was delayed by like an hour because of thunderstorms and I could see really amazing lightning from the plane. Also saw one of the Caribbean islands, not sure which one.

As we were landing at around midnight, all of the lights around the city were on and it was beautiful. I tried to find my bags, go through customs as fast as I could and was greeted by my sister Macarena and my father Willie.

My host family has 4 people in it. Margarita(Mom), Willie (Dad), and sisters Ana Karina (20 years old) and Macarena (15). They live in a penthouse apartment that overlooks the whole city. Yesterday morning, I woke up and looked out my window and thought the view was cool of a little park, a school, and random buildings with both Spanish and English signs. Then I went out to the living room/dining room for breakfast and looked out that window. You can see a huge soccer field, lots of buildings, houses, apartments, gorgeous mountains, and just the city of Quito as a whole. Everything is so colorful; I don't know if any building is plain gray. They're all red, blue, yellow and many other combinations. So it's nice to eat breakfast here with that view!

Yesterday was a very busy day. I woke up, got ready, and then went with my host dad to get something that my sister forgot at a friend's house. I don't know why we went but we did and it was nice to drive around the city and see everything. Then we went to mass, 15 minutes late mind you but it wasn't a big deal. They were really happy that I'm Catholic. It's nice that everything in a Catholic mass is the same, I just don't know the songs or responses to anything. I'll learn them eventually. Then we went out to lunch with some of their friends at a Chinese restaurant and luckily there was a man there who was from the US (had the most FANTASTIC mustache by the way) but I was able to ask him questions in English so he could answer. Mostly involving what was in the food, like if there was MSG. But that's lucky I asked because on of the main things they use to make soup has mass amounts of MSG and I just don't want headaches all of the time. My one food allergy. Great.

During lunch, I could barely stay awake. After traveling from 7am-2am the day before, altitude and the constant bombardment of Spanish, my brain and body were fried. So I napped and then we went over to one of my host mom's sister's house for the night. The lady's daughter was leaving for Holland today to go to Hope College for a year! I told her to definitely go to Lake Michigan as often as possible and she seems like she'll like it there. Also last night there were 3 other girls who are exchange students, two live really close to me and are my host mom's sisters and the other lives at the house we went to. All were very nice and I'm sure I'll be spending time with them a lot.

One thing that I'm surprisingly okay with is the greetings. Kiss on the cheek to EVERY SINGLE PERSON wherever you go in a social setting.

Okay, now I'm going to the bank to do something involving my passport and registering me in the country. I have lots more to say but have 4 months to do so. Hope all is well and I'll update soon!

Chao!

Just went to some random place, don't really know what just happened, with a copy of my passport and $10 and went to a bank with my host mom's sisters and Whitney and Valerie (Two of the girls I met last night) and then we got KFC which was delicious! I just started to get SO tired because of the altitude. So I'm gonna take a nap now!

I have lots of cultural differences I've seen but will talk about those later.

Chao