Day One!

Today was my first full day in Quito and it was absolutely amazing! I arrived late last night after much delay. My host family, Graciela & Luis, picked me up from the airport. Last night was my first experience in Quito's streets...and boy are they different than American streets. I am pretty sure there's not a speed limit, and if there is..nobody cares haha. Everyone is driving super fast and cutting people off...and people tend to jump in front of cars trying to sell fruit or candy. Oh and Quito is a giant mountain range so streets tend to be very steep. I just pretend it's a rollercoaster lol. Anyways, my host family is the absolute best and very experienced. Upon arriving to the house, they had already bought me many large jugs of water and made me soup & papas fritas! Luis gave me the great advice of drinking hot green tea after every meal to aviod altitude sickness...and thus far it has worked! Have felt totally fine despite being 9,200 feet higher than I'm used to. The home I am staying in is absolutely beautiful! It is illuminated by windows and very green. Here is a picture of the dining room from the kitchen!

This morning I woke up really early and chatted with Graciela. For breakfast I had a plate filled with pineapple, papaya and bread. Yumm. She then took me to the IES center where we all began our first day of orientation. The staff was great and we went over a lot of important information....but they talk so fast I probably comprehended only half of what was said. We then went out for lunch, which is the main meal over here. When we first sat at the table, there were cups filled with popcorn so I was quite confused. After eating bread, we were brought giant bowls of soup where everyone threw the popcorn or "canguil" in it. I thought it was interesting and took a picture.

After la sopa, we were served a giant plate with veggies, a baked potato and STEAK WRAPPED IN BACON! Delicious. Dessert was a pie with fruit fillings, also delicious. After lunch we went outside and took some pictures because the restaurant had a beautiful view of the mountains. The picture below is my group and our head staff member (we are missing one guy from our group because he missed his flight in Houston yesterday and has yet to arrive to Quito. Ayayay.)

After lunch we went back to the IES center to start Spanish classes (already!?!?) and study. Graciela picked me up later and we went to the supermarket (located in a shopping mall) where I saw the strangest escalators. They don't have steps....the escalators here are flat because people go up and down them with shopping carts haha. Anyways there is still much to do- more documents to fill. I also need to study Spanish HARDCORE because I am currently terrible at it and have a big white girl accent I need to get rid of haha. Tomorrow we go on a tour of the city so I will probably post more pictures. This weekend is also a big weekend in Ecuador because they received their independence August 6th so there are many fiestas and concerts planned!