Esta es mi vida- 1st week in Quito

---

After an 11 hour drive back from the coast we got to our appartment at 7am to find that there were people sleeping in our beds so we had to sleep on the floor for four hours while we waited for them to leave. After getting enough rest I went for a run in the park that is close by our appartment which I have been doing every day. The park is great, it has a runningbiking path around the whole thing and there is a skate board and bmx biking area, and tons of soccer fields and even a little lake in the middle where you can rent paddle boats. The only bad part about it is that there is a ton of pollution here so breathing the air isn´t great but its nice to be able to exercise. We also went to the grocery store, Supermaxi, to get food for our appartment and get settled in. Unfortunately, on our way to the supermarket we took the trolly and my bag was slashed and my camera and wallet were stolen. Then that night my computer crashed, but other than that things were great. I absolutely love the area that we are living in. It has tons of unique restaurants, bars and shops. There is always something going on, whether it is live music at a coffee shop or a night club blasting its music and crammed with people at 3pm on a saturday afternoon. We are all unpacked and moved into our appartment and on Sunday night we made our first meal together in our kitchen. the next day was Ecuador´s Independence Day. I got up early and walked around the park and there were some festivities going on with music and food. In the afternoon we shopped at a market in the park and then explored the old town which is full of historic buildings and tons of churches. We went to La Basillica which is one of the most impressive churches in the city but it was closed. On Monday we started Spanish classes with Yananpuma, the organization that we are volunteering with. We have been taking 4 hours of spanish every afternoon. My teacher speaks hardly any english so it is very challanging to understand her and learning new things is hard to figure out but i am learning a lot and getting much better at the language. Typically, my day starts by going for a run and then hanging out, doing home work or going online. WE have already found our favorite hang out= coffee toffee which is a cute little coffee shop with good food, live music at night and its open 24 hours. Afternoons we go to yananpuma for spanish and then at night we have done a bunch of fun things. We took a salsa dancing class, a cooking class where we made these mashed potato pancakes with cheese in the middle, a tomatoe and onion salad and a fried egg. We also went to a cultural dance performance one night with a group from Yananpuma. One night the group that we joined for the project in the jungle came to quito for their last night and we went out to dinner at a fancy restaurant, la boca del lobo which was really fun. Other nights we have watched movies because they sell bootleg copies of DVD for really cheap down here. We also went to a museum one day that had many pieces from the indigenous people from the coast and there were painting from a famous Ecuadorian artist= Guayasmine. I absolutely love Quito, there is so much to do I am afraid we will not get to do all the things we want to within the next month. But I love my life this busy and interesting, always with something new going on. This weekend we are going on a trip 2 hours from Quito and then on monday we start our project helping out at a day care center. more blogging to come.... and all my blogs are updated with pictures so check them all out. hope all is well and miss you all

---

Photos

the park
there are fountains and paddle boats to rent