Kerri

We arrived in Quito safe and sound but haven´t been able to use the internet much because our homestay doesn´t have internet. Our flight was perfect, no turbulence or anything, yay. We met an old couple in the Miami airport at our layover who wanted to have lunch with us, and they actually couldn´t land at Miami because of bad weather and had to circle around and around until their plane was almost out of fuel before the pilot finally decided to land in a nearby airport. At least we didn´t have that problem! And I´d heard so many terrible things about landing at the Quito airport, but we had a nice landing. Everyone clapped and congratulated the pilot and said they were amazed at his perfect landing.

Going through cutoms was a breeze. The passport officer asked me a bunch of questions about my life and we had a conversation like we were old friends... in Spanish. Funny thing, I didn´t think I knew Spanish. We were really excited at how easy everything was and how friendly people were. Our good luck ended, though, when we went to pick up our luggage and discovered that Rachel´s bag had been lost! And she realized that she didn´t even put a name tag on it. We registered it as lost, though (and it was delivered to our homestay at 1am that night thankfully!) and then finally went outside to meet the guy who´d take us to our homestay. It was around 8 or 8:30pm at that point. He was really friendly and the whole ride home we again spoke only in Spanish. I was so surprised that I could form sentences and understand him. He thought Rachel´s first name was Lipton.... hehe. ¨So which one of you is Lipton and which is Kerri?¨

Our homestay is amazing. We live in La Floresta, which is a really nice residential part of town on the western side of Quito. Our apartment complex is on a hill that overlooks a beautiful green valley and some other moutains and it´s soooo gorgeous.

We´re on the 3rd story of the complex in a pretty big apartment with 5 bedrooms. Rachel and I are sharing a bedroom that has a view of the Volcano Pinchinca and some of the city.

The house is filled with about 100 paintings that our host mother´s son painted and there´s an altar to Jesus with a candle that´s always burning in the living room.

Our host mother is a retired pediatrician named Cecilia and she´s so sweet... she´s always making sure we have enough layers on when we go out because Quito is freezing and rainy right now, and she´s a really good cook! She has 2 daughters who also live with us (aged 18 and I think 22) and then there are 3 other students learning Spanish like us, all girls from Canada, Holland, France. We also live with 4 canaries named (Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, and apparently the other one is nameless) and the sweetest, most affectionate laborador in the world named Camila. She thinks she´s a cat and if you start to pet her she just puts all her weight into you and kind of slides to the floor and then lays on her back with her feet up. Oddly enough, she has a really loud, ferocious bark and so she makes a great guard dog for the apartment complex. Rachel and I already decided we are going to take her home with us We get breakfast each morning (including fresh squeezed juices of fruits I´ve never heard of, like ono and a tree tomato), and the canaries serendade us as we eat. Dinner so far has been mainly chicken in some delicious sauces with her ¨secret ingredients¨ and rice or potatoes and a side of veggies. We have tea with every meal, even dinner. Milk comes in a bag, which I find really funny. So far dinner has been really awkwardly quiet and Rachel and I almost burst out laughing the first night. We all eat together at 6pm as a ¨family¨ and serve ourselves, then Cecilia says grace, and then it´s complete silence for the entire time we´re eating. You can hear knives and forks clanking on the plate... and me sniffling because it´s so cold out and I´m drinking tea. Sometimes there will be 30 seconds of lively conversation but if no one has anything else to say it´s another 5 minutes of silence. Haha.

The first day we were here Juliet met us at our house and took us around the new town. She´s here on a Fulbright scholarship and knows Quito pretty well already. We discovered a cool, alternative film cinema a few blocks from our house called Ocho y Medio and had some hot chocolate there. I kind of fell asleep on Rachel and Juliet at that point, maybe it was altitude sickness or jet lag. Each month the films change... this month its German films by Fassbinder That night we went with our whole house to see a free dance show at the big cultural center in town... I think it was a kick off performance for the Day of Women which is one day this weekend I think. They seem to be really big on celebrating that day because there are weeks of celebrations and dances planned before and after the holiday all over the city! The performance we saw was really great, especially considering it was free. It was about 2 hours of modern, ballet, and traditional Ecuadorian dance pieces.

The next day we ran some errands, got memberships at South American Explorers Club (discounts for everything, plus they also have a cute guard dog named Yali), managed to order some food in Spanish for lunch without the help of Juliet (giant sandwiches!), and then we had our first Spanish lesson at Yanapuma from 2-4pm. Rachel and I are taking classes together and our teacher is Betty (make sure you pronounce the t´s very clearly). She´s our age or a little bit older and is a great teacher! After speaking only Spanish with our host mother for the past 2 days and then taking our first lesson with Betty, Rachel and I are already having full on conversations in Spanish... although very basic, but still, it´s pretty cool that we already know so much We walked to the internet cafe today trying to speak only in Spanish to each other and somehow it worked. I didn´t realize I already knew so much from living in San Diego but random Spanish words just randomly pop out of my mouth and make sense. Yanapuma itself is a great organization and we´re really happy we chose them as our Spanish school. There are a lot of European students (mainly Belgian, Dutch, and French) and everyone is very friendly. They´ve got a lot of fun classes organized, too, like salsa dancing and cooking classes so we can´t wait to take some of those. Next week we´ll try making shrimp ceviche.

Last night we went out with Juliet and her Fulbright buddies to La Mariscal, also known as ¨Gringolandia¨... even though all the young Ecuadorians go out there, too! It´s where all the bars, clubs, hostals, and really good restaurants are. We got a ¨to go´ drink that is called ¨Cane lassi¨. It´s pretty odd because it´s actually a hot alcoholic drink that you sip through a straw. We walked around a bit more (in the rain with our really attractive rain coats on) until we found a small bar that was playing some salsa dance music. We stayed there and danced for a few hours with all the Ecuadorians. Wherever we go, we get these really obvious and awkward stares because we stand out so much, and it was no different at the bar. But I think after they realized we could dance salsa, or at least look like we were dancing salsa, they stopped staring at us like we were martians. The whole time everyone was dancing, there was a giant movie screen with an Asian car movie playing behind us. It didn´t make sense, but oh well. After we left the bar, we were given cough drops as a present by the doorman. Apparently it´s considered candy here.

So Quito in general is a pretty interesting city. It´s really colorful and loud, but there are some quieter neighborhoods like ours in La Floresta. So far we´ve only been to the New Town and the neighborhoods within it, but today we´re hoping to take the Trole (also 25 cents) go straight to the Old Town where all the cobblestone streets, cathedrals, and musuems are. The buses here are giant, blue smog machines that hurtle around corners at lightening speed and don´t exactly stop completely for anyone to get on or off. The good thing about them is they are only 25 cents for a ride to anywhere in town! One of Juliet´s Fulbright friends offered to show us how to get on and off and pay on our way home the other day because she lives right by us.... someday we´ll master getting on and off ourselves. Pedestrians have no rights here, and often there aren´t even any crosswalk signs anyway so you just have to go when it looks clear. Our Spanish teacher told us that the main cause of death in all of Ecuador is actually car accidents, above even cancer and other health problems. It´s really rainy in Quito at the moment, apparently it´s noramlly 1 week of sun and 1 week of rain but lately it´s been 2 weeks of rain or so we´ve been told. The rain is so bad that 4 or 5 entire provinces are in states of emergency because they´ve been flooded. It´s mainly the coastal areas to the west of us. Everywhere we go people are collecting donations and supplies for the people in those areas. We heard that we might not even be able to bus out of Quito to certain towns we wanted to visit because some of the roads are washed out... hopefully in the next 3 weeks thing will clear up.

Hm.... what else.
-Grey´s Anatomy is on at 6pm so we always get to watch about half of it before we´re called to dinner.
To get into our apartment it´s necessary to use 4 keys, but you really use the keys 8 times because in order to get OUT of each door you need a key to unlock it, and then you have to turn around and lock it again.
-There are little kids selling things at all times of day... in La Mariscal last night there were little kids selling packs of cigarettes to everyone in the rain, and just now as I was writing all of this two little boys came up to me and begged me to let them shine my shoes. It´s really sad. But it doesn´t seem like ít´s as common as in Southeast Asia though at least.
-Juliet said that oftentimes people here will do things just to feel productive, but really they aren´t doing much at all to fix anything... she pointed out the street directions as an example... one day, the street we were on was a 2 way street, and then the next day someone had changed the directions of the arrows and the street was now one way.
-Food here is cheeeeeeeeap! We had a FEAST for lunch the other day at a really delicious restaurant called El Maple. We had 3 courses... eggplant delicious something, vegetable soup, a main course of quinoa, veggies, and other delicious mystery things, and then a strawberry crepe for dessert. All for $2.50. I was actually pretty stuffed by the time I had finished the soup!
-It´s cooooold here! Especially in our house because there is no insulation or heat. I wear sweats to bed AND I have 5 blankets on top of me and I´m still somehow cold. I feel like I´m camping.

Picture of the street below ours, down the hill a bit:

Okay, I think that´s all for now. I´ll try to figure out how to put pictures in these journal entries soon! Hopefully when I come home I´ll be pretty good in espanol I´m thinking after all that I´ve learned in 3 days that it´s a real possibility.

Kerri

I still haven't decided what to bring with me, but I'm leaving in less than 24 hours. My mom is driving me to Rachel's house in Palm Desert tomorrow afternoon, where Rachel and I will compare our clothes and other items and I will likely realize I left a lot of important things at home despite spending the past week laying everything out on my bed and trying it all on ten times. Then on Tuesday we'll head to LA to spend the night at her Grandma's since our flight leaves at 6am the next morning, meaning we need to be at the airport at the ungodly hour of 3 or 4am.

So... 4 1/2 hour flight to Miami. I'm so excited to see the airport for an hour and a half, I've always wanted to visit Florida. Then another 4 hour flight to Quito. I should have Spanish mastered by that point, or at least that is the idea of my last minute cramming session on the plane. Then we will be in Quito for the next 3 weeks, a city in the Andes that holds the impressive title of "second highest capital city in the world" at 9,350 ft. I am predicting good times with altitude sickness. Other fun facts: Quito is located 15 miles south of the Equator and because of this the sun always rises at 6am and sets at 6pm. And even though it lies at the equator (equator, Ecuador... get it? hoohoo haha), Quito has a constant mild and cool climate because of its high altitude, so temperatures are usually always in the 60s and 70s. Not too shabby. If we want warmer weather, we can go to a beach or to the hot, sticky, humid, malaria-filled jungle for some more good times. I hope those good times do not entail meeting bushmaster snakes on our hikes or being eaten alive by an anacondas (thank you Dad for that news story). Quito also has a "high danger airport" (I kid you not) because of the thin, cold air that results from its high altitude. That makes me feel really wonderful. I'm hyperventilating now, but I should be feeling better by March 5 at 7:20pm when I am as far away from seat 13B as possible. Oh yeah, and there are some active volcanoes that tower above the city, which should provide some entertainment. The Teleferiqo is an aerial tramway that takes you up one of the hills of the (active) Pichincha volcano.

After 3 weeks in Quito taking Spanish lessons for 4 hours per day and (hopefully) volunteering after classes, we'll do a bit more traveling around Ecuador for another 2-3 weeks before heading to Peru. We don't have anything planned out, but ideally we'll just travel from town to town as we make our way south to Lima, Cusco/Macchu Picchu, and maybe cross the border into Bolivia after visiting Lake Titicaca. Then Rachel leaves for the States on May 25 and I stay on and do something productive in some country until early August. Working with monkeys, working as a travel journalist, teaching English to children, something like that... to be determined

Things I'm worried about... realizing I've brought way too many clothes, running out of money, not learning Spanish, and having my camera stolen (I'm bringing a big Nikon D40 so I can get better pictures on this trip and I don't have to curse my camera for only having a 3x zoom). Cross your fingers it all works out! I will report back soon with some adventures that hopefully do not involve being sick or having something stolen.

Adios!