Week 1

Alright everyone, I appoligize for the tardiness of this post as it is thursday and I have officially been in Ecuador since saturday night but now is the first time that I have been able to locate easily accessed wireless internet! Celebrate with me!!! I'm sorry that I can't write a lot of detail as my computer has little battery life left, but now I can get here easily I can keep up better.

Okay, week one. So far I am having a great time. My host family is wonderful. I have two parents and only one sister who is only 3 years old. Her name is Paula Andrea. Completely adorable but there are definately times when I need to escape to the land of the adults where everything is not pink and covered in barney or looney toons. I also have a very friendly extended family that we do a lot of things with. One of my fellow K students is living with my host mother's parents and therefore we spend a lot of time together. Actually right now she is sitting at this table across from me. :)

My univeristy is very pretty. All of the students that go there are wealthy and therefore the grounds and very well maintained. For example, we have a giant pond, a fountain, and a Japanese pagoda. What they do with it I don't know, but it is pretty sweet. Right now I am taking a weeks worth of "intensive spanish" classes. Somehow or other I made it into the advanced level with only 5 other people. I guess I knew more than I thought I did. (only the students from Kalamazoo are in this class) Next week is when we have the true international student orientation and the beginning of classes. I am excited for that to begin because then I will have a schedule that I can get used to.

It takes me almost an hour to get from my house in the middle of Quito to the university in the bordering city of Cumbaya. I have to take three different buses, each of which costs me only 25 cents. There are lots of buses here, but that is good as it is the only form of public transportation that I have found so far and I want to be able to get places by myself. I do, however, find being in the buses more comforting than just being out on the street. Walking is not so dangerous, it's crossing the lanes of traffic that becomes the adventure. So far I have yet to see any signs of real traffic laws. Things such as speed limits and even traffic lanes are simply ignored. I have decided that if you can learn to drive here, you can drive anywhere. My host father used to live in Miami and he told me that he got his drivers license taken away because he got too many tickets, I wonder why. At least I have not found any dents in either of our cars (one of which is a gold Mercedes!). I'm taking that as a good sign.

Ok, I have to go now and finish registering for my classes, I'll try to think of more stories later.
Chao.