Settling in.

Hey everyone! The past two days were really long and I’ve had a headache almost the whole time. Yesterday morning my host mother showed me where to go to pick up the bus and where I should get off. It took about 10 minutes to get to school once we were on the bus, but we had to wait about 20 minutes for the bus to pick us up. We had a few different professors come and talk to us during the day and it was hard to concentrate because the subjects didn’t interest me too much and I was starving! Lunch is really late here so by the time lunch rolled around I could hardly wait. For lunch I walked to a bakery with a few of my classmates but Jeff and I were still hungry so we decided to go back to a nearby restaurant and have more to eat. We had rice and tuna pasta. Rice is served with almost every meal. In the afternoon we had a couple more classes and my group led a discussion on our part of the summer readings. It went surprisingly well considering how unprepared and unorganized we were. Once it was time to head home my mother met me outside the school and showed me where the bus stop was to return back home. She brought my niece along who is full of energy and makes everything more exciting! She’s super funny and really cute and puts the energizer bunny to shame! The bus ride home was absolutely insane. The bus was super old and didn’t have any noticeable suspension on the back and I was seated on the back row. The driver was going super fast and every time we would hit a hole I would literally go in the air. It was super scary going around the tight corners and it felt like we were going to tip over or something. When we got off my host mother was pretty upset with the driver and told the money collector to tell the guy to slow down. After my niece, Salomé said that it was just like a roller coaster and both her grandmother and I agreed! It was wild. Once we were home I grabbed my money and cards and we headed out to the mall. I once again forgot my jacket on another trip and needed to get another one along with a cell phone, contact solution, and shampoo. We spent over 3 hours at the mall walking around shopping and sitting at the cell phone store for a worker to help us. Once we returned home I talked to my family and went to bed.

This morning I during breakfast I told my host mother that she didn’t have to take the bus with me again and I ventured out by myself in Quito for the first time. Granted it’s only a 5-10 minute walk to the bus stop I felt very independent and it was great being to walk around unnoticed since I look like I belong. Once I got to the bus stop I wanted for a very almost 25 minutes or more until the bus came. I began to wonder if the bus had come but I didn’t read the sign correctly and missed it or something since it seemed like I was waiting forever. Luckily it eventually came and I was on my way to school. Once at school we had a lecture about globalization and then we had a Spanish test. It went pretty well, but there were a couple times I had to guess or just answer based on the context since the directions didn’t make sense to me since I never learned all of tenses and such. For lunch I went to the same restaurant with a few people and it was pretty good again. I can’t believe how cheap a full meal is; it’s $1.25 for soup, rice, plantains, salad, and fresh juice. That’s one thing I’ve loved so far, juice concentrate doesn’t exist and all juices are made with real fruit every single day. In the afternoon the rest of the groups presented on their sections of the summer readings and then we discussed a trip that we are going on tomorrow! I’m really excited! After the school day was over I decided to walk home with Rheanne and Erin who both happen to live right by me. It took us about 40 minutes, but it was great seeing more of the city and become more familiar with my surroundings. Once I got home I went upstairs and greeted everything then went downstairs and went straight to bed. They woke me up a few hours later for dinner and then we talked as usual for a little while. For some reason the power went out so we had some nice candle lit talks and shared jokes for a while until they came back on. I still needed to pack from my trip so I headed downstairs and began packing after I talked to my family. Once I was done I sewed the hole in the pocket of my jeans shut that I ripped at the airport in Tennessee on Monday with my wallet. It actually turned out amazingly well and I took it as a sign that I would be a great plastic surgeon. On a more serious note, we have to be at school at 6:45 in the morning for our trip and my parents graciously offered to drive me in the morning, but I still have to wake up very early and should get some sleep! Chao