The first two days

Well it's my second day here, in Quito, Ecuador that is. I left Cedar Grove, WI at 4am on January 5th. Many tears had been shed over the days, packing, saying goodbye to my best friend Ben, and then saying "see you later" to my parents, who I can not thank enough. They will never know how much I am thankful for them or how much they have helped me. My mom is the most incredible person in the world. Thanks mom.

Well once at the airport my good friend Shanna and I went to Atlanta where we sat for 7 hours. During this time I managed to get sick and we sat at the wrong gate for 4 hours. Needless to say we made it to the right gate and met up with the 4 other girls going to this amazing place. On the plane I sat in the middle of an Ecuadorian women visiting her family and a Chinese girl wearing a medical mask...thanks for making me more nervous. The best part of the flight was getting to have free TV screens as our disposal, talk about cool, o and we got dinner, which wasn't bad by all means. Arriving in Quito all 6 of us started to get excited, nervous, and most of all tired. We stood in line with what seemed like a million other people for an hour to get our stamp from immigration. After this we found our luggage (all of it made it!) and the pack of 6 girls toting two rolly bags each and a backpack headed for customs (probably looked pretty intimidating).

Right away we all found our host families and the Spanish speaking now started. Getting home at 1:30 and trying to talk spanish was impossible. My host sister eventually said "you can go to bed if you want". So I found the best clothes to sleep in on the top of my bags and went to bed, and slept until 10:30. The first day was overwhelming. I got my three different keys to get into my house and then "learned" the bus system. The rest of the day we went out to each with included a ton of food and then I think we drove around for 2 hours and after that, at 8 I locked myself in my room and went to bed.

Today I slept in and found of that no one was home except the 2 women who I assume are the house keepers. I did some busy work and tried to get ready for orientation. At 2:00 I met up with Sammy (a student who is starting her second semester in Quito and who is from SNC) she picked me up in the taxi right at my door and my host mom even walked me to the taxi... 5 feet from the door. She is such a nice lady. We went to this place and talked a lot and I got to put more money on my cell. After that I decided to start a blog, here we are! Enjoy.