¡Bienvenidos a Quito!

Sunday night (Monday morning, rather) at 1:30 AM I began this adventure by boarding the Megabus in Madison, which would take me to the Minneapolis airport. A couple flights later I arrived in Quito with six new friends from my program that I met on the way over. Arriving in Quito, I expected to totally know what was going on. After all, I had just gotten home from six weeks in Rwanda, so was else is there to know about international travel? Turns out, I was wrong. This trip is way harder, so far.

Don’t get me wrong; I am going to love Quito soon. But right now, I am a little overwhelmed, mostly because I am bad at Spanish. I live with a very sweet host family, but we have a hard time communicating because of my level of Spanish. They don’t speak English, nor should I expect or want them to, but it can be stressful and awkward not knowing how to ask questions or answer theirs. I already notice myself improving though, and I am VERY excited about that!

Plane picture, just because I end up glued to the window. I thought I'd share what I had been watching for  six hours! 

First glimpse of Quito :) 

We stayed in a hotel the first night, since we arrived very late and had a full day of orientation the next day! This is Sara and Julia, my roomies that night.

There was a dog on a roof across from our hotel room that looks a lot like Belle :) I saw four dogs on roofs from my window that morning! I would like to live on a roof with my dog someday.

I have started some orientation and a couple of classes at CIMAS. CIMAS is a program/center that partners with University of Minnesota to provide a study abroad experience to students interested in international development in Ecuador. The classes are a bit long (an hour and a half each), and having them totally in Spanish doesn’t help the time fly by. I’m sure they are super interesting, but as of right now I only understand about half of what is said! Oh well, I’ll catch on!

Beautiful view from the back of CIMAS! That is a volcano named Pinchicha, which stretches along the entire city of Quito. It is useful to orient yourself because it will always be in the west :)

CIMAS! 

Today (Thursday), we had just one class, then headed out on a tour of Quito Viejo. Quito Viejo is a part of central Quito that used to be all that there was to the capital. We did most of the tour by bus (but sat on the open upper deck so it was still nice) and then toured a museum that highlights several centuries of the city’s existence! Quito Viejo is beautiful, and I really enjoyed this field trip.

Our tour bus. I really liked riding on the top, until it got cold and a little rainy at the end.

Some biiiig buildings in Quito!

I wish I remembered what this church is called, but it is beautiful! 

Some of this wonderful city :) 

I'll admit I don't know what this is, but it shows some of the amazing architecture we saw on this tour. 

La Virgen del Apocalipsis.  

Some of us with Quito in the background! Kat, Shomari, Janay, Alexa, Charlie, Marais, and me. 

Way up at the top is the Virgen statue that I have a close-up of a couple of pictures earlier. It is on top of a beautiful hill!

Have you guessed yet that I love hills?

I think one of our CIMAS directors said that this is the oldest street in Quito? Not sure, but it was nice to walk down!

Whenever the birds would settle in this one plaza, little kids would run through and they would all take off, only to come back a few minutes later :)

 Early tomorrow morning we will head out for a two-day trip to San Jose de Minas, which is two hours north. Apparently there is a distillery, a mineral bath, and some sort of Catholic parade. Somehow these things must all be connected, but I didn’t quite understand how. You’ll see when I post my next blog! After this little trip, I head straight to a family reunion for my host family. I am pretty nervous about that since I probably won’t understand anyone. The sister of my papá (my tía I guess? I don’t want to take these host-relationships too far…) is flying in from New York tomorrow for the reunion. I wonder if she’ll let me speak English to her… Haha! Whatever happens, I’m sure this will be a learning experience. And you will hear about it soon! ¡Hasta luego!