After being two days late and missing orientation, I finally arrived in Ecuador! My family is great, our apartment is in a really nice location, (right above a liquor store {so i don't have to go far} , hair salon and internet cafe). It's really in the city which is weird for me, since my house is basically a farm and Ashland isn't a isn't exactly a booming metropolis (Quito has a few million people, so it's pretty big and an easy place to get lost.) There is always a car alarm going off outside, cars honking their horns and the sound of airplanes overhead. So far there hasn't been a quiet moment. Oh and speaking of location, so where I live is real close to the airport and...the soccer stadium! I'm stoked! I heard Ecuador is playing Brazil in March in Quito, so hopefully I will be able to go!!! That'd be so awesome!! :-)
So today was a very interesting and nerve racking day. It was my first day in la Universidad San Francisco de Quito and my first day of classes there. OMG, I was so worried! I didn't really know where I was going or anyone else that really spoke English (but it was really easy to find them, haha, so I made some new friends!). My classes today were all in Spanish, one of them I have no idea what is going on and the other seems like a fun time and we get to go on field trips too! I'm thinking about adding another class though, called andisima, which is mountain climbing. It's one day a week and then on weekends you go climb mountains and probably even the ones that are volcanoes!
The University has such a beautiful campus! It has this lagoon full of goldfish and this Japanes looking building that is apparently for meditation, now that I'm thinking about it, it's really similiar to Ashland. It's pretty secluded, and the campus is small, but it definitely is in a better location! Right in the middle of the Andes mountains! I't's so pretty, I hope that you enjoy the Amish buggies passing by while I look off into the mountains! ;-)
And the students there dress so nicely! Haha, I already miss being able to roll out of bed and just go to class, no here I have to get ready, walk a couple of blocks, take a 40 minute bus ride(which is going to make me wish that I had an IPOD) and then try not to get run over walking across this like 4 lane road to campus. Crossing the street here is literally like playing Frogger, they really don't care if you're a pedestrian, you are just in the way. Even driving is crazy! They would rather get into an accident then let you pass them!
Anyways, so in order to get to campus I have to take the bus through the mountains, because my University located in el valle Cumbaya in the Andes mountains. I have to take two buses, a red one and then a green one. It's a stunning view of the mountains. My madre took me this morning, but this afternoon I decided to try taking the bus back to Quito. (Haha) It's a little scary riding in a bus going around corners really fast and having the only thing separating you and falling to your death on the valley floor is an old fence or a few pieces of wood, very reassuring!
Okay, so I rode the bus back to my apartment with a couple other students who live in Quito. So... we took the green bus to the bus station and went to the bus station for the red buses, no problem. Well, there were quite a few options for which red bus to take and of course...I chose to get on the wrong one! I was going the wrong way down 6 de deciembre! When the we realized that I was going in the wrong direction, I was kind of laughing because this is totally something that would happen to me and there wasn't much else to do besides get even more lost! I was just going to wing it when we got off, but we decided that that was a bad idea, so I got off the bus somewhere, I have no idea where, so I started asking for directions. I talked to a few people, and they gave me directions back to the bus station which I understood for the most part, but then I thought about all the hills I was going to have to climb and how far I had to walk to get back, so I just decided to take a taxi home. So I guess tomorrow I will hopefully figure out which bus to take to and from my new university! It should be an interesting adventure!
