My lovely mom drove me to the airport early in the AM on Friday; big props to her for holding it together and not breaking down completely in front of the power hungry, yet useless traffic cops at the departures lane. Love you mom. Met a Columbian lady in line, stood in the security line forever, and barely made it on my flight…
Miami:
After traveling all day Friday I have arrived in Quito! The plane ride to Miami from Chicago was very short and I couldn’t sleep because I was too nervous/excited. I was lucky enough to meet another volunteer in an awkward, yet friendly encounter on the airplane. I decided to wait for her after we landed and we walked together to meet the rest of the volunteers. Her name is Maureen and she is from Illinois as well. We took the scenic route of Terminal ‘E’ twice, and finally met our group. We held a small meeting, did some corny, yet necessary icebreakers, and filled the rest of the time with small talk between strangers to hopefully make new friends. Using a short list, I chatted with Sarah from New Jersey, Peter from Maryland, Nicole from California, Mike from Hinsdale, and Keith from SoCal. While talking with Keith we realized that we were both rooming together in Quito and were both placed in Cuenca. He is a huge soccer fan, speaks Spanish very well, and is a pretty cool guy.
Quito:
No sleep on the plane, but finished my book. Landing in Quito we flew over the Stadio Nacional which was still lit up for some reason. After getting our bags and making it through customs without any problems we met Kate and Peter, our Directors in Quito! First impression: they are both very nice and accommodating. We all piled into three vans (have no idea how we fit with all our bags) and headed to the hotel for the night. After finding our rooms a handful of us decided to go out for one cerveza, since we were pretty tired. One beer turned into a dozen pitchers and we accidently stayed out until 2ish. It turned out to be a good even because I was able to chill with Keith and Peter and found out they both are soccer fans. I also met Lauren squared (Two girls named Lauren who ironically were rooming together in Quito and placed in the same city for the year). They were both really nice as is everyone so far. We had to wake up for breakfast at 8am, which was not so nice considering the drinking, but was able to do so because I literally slept for about an hour. We met our host families’ on Saturday night. The next post will tell about them more in depth. All I can say is, I AM TOTALLY STOKED NOW and all apprehensions are GONE! I love South America.
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