My first days in Quito

Buenas dias de tu amiga en Quito! Good day from your friend in Quito!

It’s been a whirlwind few days getting settled here so I am finally getting a chance to post. After the slight detour I wrote about, we made it to Quito on Thursday afternoon. We went to our hotel, ate a real meal (pizza, por supuesto! Of course!) and got to know the other students. Josh and I ventured around “Gringolandia,” as it is called, basically white people land to buy Ecuadorian cell phones and water. For those of you who know my American cell phone, I got a major upgrade for only $50! Haha! I rested before we all ate dinner at the hotel together. Then, we all had a fun time getting to know each other and went to a “regaton” dance club.

All my peers in the program seem really cool, fun-loving and easy to get along with so far. I don’t think they’ve quite figured out the situation between me and Josh and it’s kind of entertaining. I’m sure the cat will be out of the bag soon, but for the beginning it’s good to all hang out as a group and not have people think of us as being separate and a couple.

Friday was a looong day: orientation at CIMAS (our school) – todo en espanol y fue dificil escuchar por muchas horas! (all in Spanish and it was difficult to listen for many hours!) Then, the BIG moment of meeting our host families. I found mi mama Elsa y hermano (brother) Sebastian who rushed me with big hugs and helped me lug my life in bags for 3 months to their car (gracias a Dios que no tuvimos que ir en el bus – thank God that we didn’t have to go on the bus). As we headed to our house, Elsa pointed out different things and we chatted about the basics of me. Our house was surprisingly nice and my favorite feature, SO safe! (Mom that’s for you!) It has a garage gate/wall thing that we pulled in to plus a heavy-duty gate across our front door. I have 3 keys and even with those things I have a hard time opening the locks sometimes! The downstairs is the living room, kitchen, dining room and office. Upstairs is my bedroom, and their two bedrooms plus my own bathroom, with plenty of hot water (a luxury in Ecuador). Elsa immediately made me feel at home. She is super hospitable and kind and warm. Continuing, we took Sebastian to karate (go figure, haha). Elsa and I walked around while we waited and I ate my first empanada (basically an elephant ear sans cinnamon) and morchada (a hot milk drink with morchada, a rice like grain) from a street cart. I prayed I wouldn’t be running to the bathroom in a half hour…and I was fine! The rest of the night I got settled in mi casa nueva (new home).

Saturday was a brand new day! Elsa, Sebastian and I walked around Parque La Carolina (park). We all kicked around a soccer ball (futbol here) and then Sebastian tried to play volleyball with me despite my best efforts in Spanish to tell him I was terrible. Well, language barriers are beaten down by actions and he quickly realized what I had told him. We also walked around a centro commercial (mall) which was pretty American, minus the prices, so cheap. They have tons of TGI Fridays, KFCs and McDonalds here! In the evening, Josh and I met up for dinner and then went on to meet our friends in “La Mariscal Sucre” aka Gringolandia. It was really good to reunite with Josh because the first couple days felt like a time warp with so many new things to absorb. For all you Huskies out there, we basically found an Ecuadorian Earl’s called Sutra, made much classier-seeming by the salsa dancing in one corner. $1.50 vodka tonics that seemed to lack the tonic part!

Sunday was a full but awesome day. Josh came to my house and all four of us went to the Centro Historico (Historical district). Elsa and Sebastian waited with us in line to go into the Palacio Presidential ( I bet you can figure that one out…) but Elsa forgot their IDs so they couldn’t go in with us. So, after asking her about 8 times to make sure I understood how to get back home, they left and Josh and I walked around. There are gorgeous churches galore, government buildings, open squares – like you would expect to see in a European historical center. Beautiful, especially compared to the general run-downedness of Quito. After a lunch for $2.50 each (Dad you would love it here!), we visited the most thrilling place of the day – La Basilica. A HUGE, no longer in use, church where you can climb to the very very top. And climb we did! We went to the very top of the tower, right under the steeple point which is at 78 meters (about 250 ft). And people, this is not America or Europe in terms of restoration and upkeep. There were chunks of the wall ornaments on the ground and one “floor” we came to was only made of beams and rebar. In another part, we walked across the tops of the pointed ceilings of the main part of the church on a suspended wooden board “bridge” to reach the far tower. Really, you have to see the pictures and even then, I don’t know if they do this justice!

After plenty of exploring, our last brave act for the day was attempting to get the bus back to my house. Buses here don’t really like to stop all the way and a guy leans out of the doorway and yells where the bus is going. We hopped on when it came by, almost leaving Josh halfway between the platform and bus steps. I nervously peered out for our stop and when I saw it coming, we jumped out of our seats and flung ourselves down the bus steps. Thankfully, there were a number of people getting off so the bus pretty much did stop. Quite the adventure!

Back at my house, Elsa was thrilled to meet Josh. She taught us to make empanadas. I tried not to watch while she put huge chunks of butter in the dough! Que rica! (Literally, “how rich” and what people say when something is yummy!) It was a blast, great memories. Elsa loves Josh and says we are “una pareja muy linda” or a beautiful couple. I was nervous about how my family would react to me having a fiancé here and wanting to hang out with him but it turned out perfectly. Elsa wants Josh to be a part of our family too and come over whenever, like it was his house. Like I said, she is so kind-hearted and genuine!

I know this has gotten super long, so I will wrap up. So far, it’s been a great experience. I’m much relieved to have a family that I click with and feel so comfortable with. It’s definitely an adjustment and way different place here. Just being in a place that is so poor opens your eyes. I’m looking forward to getting into a routine with school and traveling to all the amazing places around Ecuador on the weekends. More on all those to come! I miss you all and hope you’re all well!

Un besito! A little kiss!