Week # 1

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So, I set this up a while ago but haven't written anything yet, either because a) I didn't have internet b) I didn't have a computer or c) I just didn't have time. But anyway here it goes...

I landed in Quito late last thursday, I think, and basically went to a restaurant across the street from my hotel with the rest of our group. The next day we went on a tour of the city in the morning and then left for Otavalo in the afternoon. Otavalo is a small village north of Quito with a large market. The amount of globalization in this small village shocked me. The next day when we left Otavalo we stopped at two artisan shops on our way back to Quito. Back in Quito we went to dinner, and then the casino attached to our hotel, I lost some money, had a cigar, and went to bed. The next day was a sunday, and was the day we left Quito for Cuenca, where I'll be living and studying for the next month.

The flight to Cuenca was really turbulent and Cuanca's airport is surrounded by buildings so it looked like we were going to clash into a giant ball of flames, but we didn't. We were then put on a bus and taken to the school where we would be studying at, CEDEI, to meet out host families. They called our names one by one, and then we went with our host family into another room, and shortly after left with them to there homes.

When I arrived at my new house the rest of my host family was there waiting. Three host brothers, two of which are married and have kids, also host aunts and uncles and there kids, in all that night at dinner there were maybe 12 adults and then another 5 children, all talking in Spanish, very quickly, my head hurt so much, but then my host father and brothers invited my outside to have a smoke with them. The conversations were much slower and I understood a lot more, my host father had a trick buzzer pen that he used to play tricks on me and every one in the circle.

The next day was a tour of Cuenca, and the first day of classes. Cuenca is a really nice city, there's two main parts, the old city and the new city. I go to class in the old city and live in the new city. The architecture of the old city is stereotypical colonial latin american, and amazing to see, pictures wouldn't even do it justice. My Spanish class is SPA380, Spanish grammar, conversation, and culture. It's been pretty nice so far, not to fast. That night my youngest host brother took me to play soccer, it was hard, the whole being at 2500 meters makes everything a lot harder.

That's it for now

Nick

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