Day One

Friday, October 2nd

This is basically a repeat of the last post but my internet crashed as I hit "post" on the last one, so I retyped it not knowing whether or not the crash was pre post or after:

So I have been in Ecuador for three days now and I love everything…almost. So I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

Someone puked on the plane from Portland to Houston and it smelled HORRIBLE for like three hours. But I met a lady on the plane who is a missionary in Ecuador (and whose in-laws happen to live in Washougal), who was so nice. She gave me all of her information and told me that I could use their phone whenever I wanted and that she would take me out to lunch a few times. Awesome.

The plane landing and customs were totally smooth, and a driver picked us up and took us to our hotel. That night was pretty much a wash, we just bought some water and went to bed. Since then however, I have been using the tap water for everything with so problems to speak of at this point.

In the morning (the first official day), we all went downstairs and had breakfast (scrambled eggs and breakfast roll-things) which was pretty good, no complaints so far. Then we went and walked around the city for a while and figured out where the malls were and our position in the city. After, we took naps and then went to an internet café (where I tried to post a blog but the internet conveniently crashed as I was about to hit “post”). We got dinner at the hotel (chicken with some sort of sauce and big oven fries and a salad) and then went out to a bar and sat and talked for a while. Then some of the group went home to bed and the rest of us went out dancing. It was fun and we met a bunch of people.

This morning, we were picked up and brought to CIMAS, and basically lectured about REALLY boring topics (like the political state of Ecuador) for a few hours in Spanish. We had lunch (a DELICIOUS potato cheesy soup) and then took the Spanish placement test, which I BOMBED…but oh well I guess that just means that my final will make me look like I learned a TON.

As of right now, the ecology students are reviewing their syllabus and my program (all four of us) is sitting in the lobby having “free-time” and then I assume we will review our syllabus. After all the reviewing, we are meeting out host families and going home with them.

So that’s the story so far…it has been totally smooth. We start classes on Monday, so more adventures to come. Ciao!