Luck.

Goodness. So much has happened since I last posted. This is gonna be a long one.

Well, we left Cuzco, Peru at 6 PM on Wednesday. We were told that we would be in Lima at 2 PM the next day.  However, we did not arrive until  about 5 or 5 30. We were also not on and Ormeno bus, which is the company we bought our tickets from. It was so weird, because we were led to the bus by and Ormeno representative. Oh well, it still got us to Lima. The trip was not super comfortable though, because we had to go through mountains. The bus from Lima to Quito was actually an Ormeno bus, and it was a little better. The trip was longer, about a day and 14 hours.  We had a little delay in northern Peru. There was a protest blocking traffic in the middle of the road. We sat for about an hour until the police came and tear gased the protestors. We had the windows of the bus open, and just a tiny bit of tear gas got in, but it still hurt!  We got here Saturday around ten.  However, we were dropped off at the Ormeno office in the middle of the street, not at a bus station. We called the emergency contact at the university, and she told us that our city tour was starting in half an hour and we had to take taxis to Cumbaya, a suburb of the city where the university is located. At this point, we had not showered since Tuesday night, had not eaten or slept very well, and we had all of our luggage. So we pile into taxis, and go to the university, but no one was there, because the tour was today.  So we wait for about half an hour, stranded orphans on the steps of the university, and then our host families start arriving. Turns out my host familly lives about two blocks away, so I can walk to school! My host family is wonderful. I got so so lucky. Its just me living here. Some of the other students had to double up. That means I get lots of good Spanish practice! In the house its just me, my host Mom, Martha, and her youngest daughter, Monica who is 21. There are two other daughters, but they are married. I met one of them yesterday when we went to Cayambe, where their family has a rose plantation. Roses are the fourth most important export in Ecuador. They also have horses and other farm animals.  Thats where the dad, Felipe, lives. After exploring the plantation, we went to a bull fight haha. Its a part of the holiday that is going on right now, the Festival de San Pedro.

Today, we went on the tour around the city. We started with the equator, which was pretty cool. We saw water spin different ways on different sides of the line and an egg balancing on a nail.  After that, we toured around Quito itself. I wish we were living in the city, but Cumbaya is very nice as well. We had a tour of it today, and there are a lot of cool places to go and eat and eat and hang out. A bunch of us are going out tonight to celebrate the Fourth of July hahaha.

I like it here a lot, but I feel a bit stifled by the program. Not by my host family, they are cool with me coming and going as I please. But our orientation session today was very long and full of them telling us not to do a lot of things. All of it was good advice, but after living in our own house in La Paz and having our own agency and freedom, this is a little strange. I think it will relax a bit after we all get settled in though. We start class tomorrow. There are four classes, a beginner, and intermediate, and two classes of advanced. Thankfully, the placement test that I bombed when my Bolivian internet quit on me was not counted, so I will be continuing at the correct level.

This weekend is our only free weekend. My host family was very excited about taking me somewhere, so they are planning a trip to somewhere where we can see lots of hummingbirds and other animals and zip line in the forest. I think some of my friends are thinking about going as well. The next weekend we will be in the middle of the Amazon at Tiputini Biodiversity Station. The third weekend is in Riobamba, a small mountain town, and then we leave the last weekend. I have a feeling this trip will fly by.

I am going to wrap this up, because I still have some things to do before we go out tonight. I also feel weird taking over my host familys computer for extended periods of time. Sorry for the weird punctuation of this post, the keyboard is in Spanish, and I cant find some of the characters haha.