Atacames

So, I´ve fallen way behind on my blogging as you guys can tell. But maybe that´s a good thing, that means I´ve been dedicating my time to more important things like school right???...... we´ll let the end of the semester determine that....

So now, the weekend before last we traveled to Atacames, Ecuador mainly because one of the girls will be traveling with her community service agency for the majority of weekends to come and she wanted to get some beach love before hand...so we went.

There were several beaches we could´ve gone to in Ecuador, all of which would´ve been at least a 7hr bus ride from Quito because of Ecuador´s moutainous terrain it takes forever to travel to the costal cities. Atacames is located in Ecuador´s province of Esmeraldas. This province is notorious for putting out star athletes in Ecuador´s soccer leagues and national team. Incidentally, Esmeraldas has Ecuador´s largest Afro-Ecuadorian population at 80% of the province. It´s interesting that Blacks in Ecuador even though they are a more extreme minority,like African-Americans in the U.S., dominate the country´s premeir sport. Is this an attestment to Black physical superiority or another example of how societal factors have affected the sports landscape and in what ways?? Tell me what you think.

So we took a bus for $8 at 3:30 for our 7hr trip to Atacames. The first 3hrs of the trip were phenomenal seeing how a carretera(highway) was carved out of the Andes Mountains. It felt like an Indiana Jones movie, how high up we were in a charter bus. There was a 3month old infant to my left with her mom and her 14yr old sister to my left. AT first it was annoying but we forged a sort of comaraderie through the tumultous drive that at one point was sooo humid that we could barely see out the windows and to open them meant freezing. Oddly enough I got into a random conversation with the man and his daughter infront of me because I was speaking english with my friends about everything from jazz to Hurricane Katrina. It ended with him giving me his e-mail address and telling me if I needed anything to just let him know. Granted, I was a little weary at first just because I´ve heard horror stories of naive Americans...but he seemed genuinley nice.

We got there at 11:30 and all 5 piled into a small rinky little taxi cart that reminded me of the same ones in China. We got to the hotel and were surprised that it was going to cost $34 per person as opposed to $17, but at that point we weren´t going to argue nor try and find another hotel. We left to find food and found a pizza place on the beach surrounded by discotecas and bars. Soon after we returned after some of the girls got their baile on to our beds with mosquito nets because malaria was prevalant but not endemic in the region. Needless to say I was taking my malaria medicine every other day just like the bottle said so.

The next day we visited some artesanias that had stands set up near the beach and then went on to the overcast white sanded beach. The girls were expecting to get some sun, me not soo much, but that definitely wasn´t going to happen with the overcast skies. Chisara and Kristina met a guy trying to sell a boat ride for $30 on the beach,which to me looked sketchy but they were ancy to go so we all piled in. It turned out to be much better than I though and we got to see more of the coast. We got to se some more sealife.

That night we ate at a nice seafood restaurant where the girls wanted to get ceviche, which is a kind of stew that is notorious for making foreigners sick. I chose to get lomo(or beefsteak). THe girls ended up getting fish instead. After that we went to a couple of discotecas and called it a night. The next day, I woke up late while they all went to the beach to try and tomar el sol(or sun bathe). By 2 we were back on the long road back to Quito, which only took 6hrs on the way back!!!!

Hopefully I´ll be able to get in another post about this most recent weekend in the Oriente(AMAZON).

Todo de Otavalo

Let´s give this another shot...

I´m going to be sprinkling in photos throughout, because there are soo many!

So two girls in the program, Chisara and Kristina, were supposed to be planning our trip to Otavalo this weekend. We weren´t all on the same page on when we were going, who we were going with and where we´d be staying until around 11:30PM Friday night. It´s a two hour ride to Otavalo from Otavalo, it turned out to be a 3hr BUS ride from Quito to Otavlo, which wasn´t amazing but they did show some cheasy American movie about a Chimp who is a spy dubbed over in Spanish on the way there as consolation.

We decided to meet at this address somewhere in Quito where there was a terminal for us to take a bus to Otavalo. Alison and I live next to each other so Alison walked to my place and then we looked for a taxi. All the while I am looking desperately for an ATM because it is a small country town and I didn´t know if there would be one, and one of the primary reasons for traveling there was to shop...and if I didn´t have cash...well you can put two together...needless to say they had a couple of ATM´s there BECAUSE it was a tourist hotspot.

Mother, Mike...please don´t kill me, I do confess that I pulled out $100 at their ATM, granted I only came with $4 and two was for the bus, and we had to pay for food, taxis and hostel while there so it wasn´t ALL on regalos(gifts) but most of it was. We got there about 8 blocks from the center of town and had to aimlessly walk down cobblestone road till we found it. Chisara works for CARE(CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. We place special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.). It´s an international organization that her aunt is the president of and she will be working with here in Quito. They had a stand that Saturday at Otavalo and Chisara will be working with them in the predominantly Black province of Chota.

We got there, listened to CARE people speak about their various projects and then we were on the hunt for an ATM. I found one and made my first of 4 trips to the ATM throughout the day!!! There were kiosks EVERYWHERE along this one street with all kinds of vendors. You would just glance at a stand and someone would walk up in a pusher´s voice and say, ¨Hola, amigo tengo mucho de ________¨ They had everything from scarfs, to shirts, sweaters and a whole host of other handwoven items and paintings. I bought all of those things and more... but it was worth it, an alpaca sweater, the only thing I got for myself cost $10!!! I soon learned the meaning of descuento(discount) because if you looked like you didn´t want it and they´d say ¨quieres un descuento señor¨

Anywho after hours of shopping and walking we ate lunch only as a break for more hours and hours of shopping. Once we had reached our limit, we all 5 piled into a taxi to head for the hostel which one of the girls made reservations for. It cost $10 per person. It was called La Luna and was about 15min away from the city seemingly on a finca(farm) and was surrounded by fincas. At first traveling up the windy and crumbling cobblestone road up to this big house on a farm with a rusty gate, was worrisome and shady, but after meeting the owner and seeing the rooms, the hammocks and the mountain view...it was heaven. The perfect romantic spot for a novia(girlfriend).

There were three rooms and I got the one with the only functioning fireplace. There were two bedrooms with one having a ladder to access the bed up in a small loft above. The view of the mountains surrounding Otavalo were phenomenal as you can see. They also had several HUGE dogs that sorta protected the place I guess. After it got dark we waited for a taxi to take us into town to eat and see a cock fight(pelea de gallos)...illegal in the U.S. We ate at this hookah bar, in which we partook in hookah, jasmine flavored...like the incense...not so tasty. It had a very relaxing ambiance about it. We asked the taxi driver if it was peligroso and responded about 50 times with no, ¨Otavalo es muy tranquilo y bonito¨.

We left the restaurtant and found a cheap phone booth in which I called my dad to find out that UAB lost to MARSHALL!!!! We proceded to ask person after person in this shady looking area where the cock fight was. We finally found it and the cock fight cost $1 and we sat for about 20min before they started with the first bout. It wasn´t as exciting as I anticipated and a little brutal once one of the cocks gave up, but they took the loser out before he REALLY went out.

We came back to a living room full of smoke because one of the fireplaces didn´t lead the smoke out so it just stayed in the room and the fire was out by the time we came back. A guy came back and lit the one in my room and it worked better. It was fun to have a fire again, like back when I was an active scout. The girls didn´t know how to add/build a fire...which was sad, but fun for me. There were also these figurines of obviously African slave head masks on the wall above my bed which was quite creepy.(see picture of me mocking them).

Gosh this is long, but hopefully the pictures will soften the blow. The next day we paid and the hostel made us lunch(me a hamburguesa con queso). And the taxi arrived around 10am and we began the drive up the hill to hike around Lake Mojanda in the mountains above Otavalo. It was the same taxi driver from the night before and the girls thought he was hot...although he had a very long pinky finger nail which Chisara informed me is for snorting coke.......co-cah-eeeenah(cocaine pronounced in español).

It took about 30min up a windy deteriorating road, very creepy but gorgeous. I took a ton of pictures from the taxi itself that turned out phenomenal. Once we got there we walked around the lake a good bit, wrote our names in the sand that was black from volcanic ash surely since one of the large mountains was a volcán(volcano). It was an amazing day up there, with tons of great pictures. The cab esperó por un hora y media antes de salimos por veinte dólares. We then made the trek down the hill, to the hostel to pick up our gifts we bought and down to the bus for the ride home...we were exahusted as I am now after writing this very long post.

....hope you enjoy it and most everybody that knows me, whom is reading this has a gift on the bed!!!!! granted I return on May 17.....

chao(the correct spelling for ciao(italian version) in español

p.s. I have about 10 more pics to upload, too many good one to choose from and it´s taking forever at the computer at my host family´s house...I´ll put more up tomorrow

The trip, Day and Stay at Otavalo

This might end up being two posts depending on how much I write because this past weekend I took a TON of pictures at Otavalo.

But first, I´m going to write a bit about my community service experience this past week. Once again, the name of the program I am studying abroad with is called International Partnership for Service Learning and Leadership. The unique thing about the program is that you are required to do 20hrs of community service which will enhance my understanding of the place I´m studying abroad in. They have many programs in many different countries including one in the U.S. with the Lakota Nation in South Dakota, which seems really interesting. Anywho, I was originally slated to work at a school called Colegio Ipatia Cardenas.

*A picture of me and a girl in my program, Alison Ethridge, and some heart shaped bread I bought while the bus was at a stop*

In the application they had 2-3 pages of questions asking preferences of where you would like to work(school, hospital etc) and who you would like to serve(Persons with physical or mental disabilites, elderly, children, adolescents). It seems as those preferences went right out the window. I was going to be at a school teaching English(because I´m trained to teach English as a secnod language right?...NO). Apparently the first school didn´t work out because there were too many volunteers. We went to another school but the service coordinator didn´t like the principal of the school because she wasn´t punctual. So I went to an organization called, Chicos de la Calle which was not my original site but the site of another student in the program.

*A pensive shot of Alison looking off and this neat little house on the road there*

Sometimes mistakes work out for the better. Chicos de la Calle(Children of the Street, literally) may not be too P.C. but they do a lot of good work and have been for 30 años. Basicamente, trabajo y ayudo con chicos quien no tienen una casa con su tarea. Or as they say here deberes, which is the same thing as tarea:homework. I was actually helping a child with his long division and was completely lost because it read: 986.453/4 - 222 = ??????? It took me a while but I soon remembered that our comma used to separate numbers is their decimal and vice versa. I remember thinking wow, at age 10 I was not dividing decimals, haha....stupid me.

Last story, I swear. Yesterday we went and this girl that couldn´t be older than 12 came in with her 10yr old brother and infant sister. All, including the infant, were dressed in very dirty and ragged clothing. The girl had a...half inch gash that she got on Friday that looked swollen around the yellow looking scab....aka. infected. Being the Boy Scout that I am I still had some first aid stuff left over in my backpack from the trip to Otavalo. I first cleaned the already scabbed over gash with some chloride wipe stuff, then put bactroban type stuff on it and covered it with a band-aid however the band-aid didn´t fit her hand well at all, so I gave her a couple more. It´s depressing that nobody was there to tell the girl to go get some hydrogen peroxide for the cut or anything else...and we aren´t at all equipped to be a first aid facility.








*A picture of another girl in the program, Eva Mantybande, knocked out during the 2hr, $2, bus ride to Otavalo*


So.....I lied, I´ll upload a couple of pictures of the road trip to Otavalo here and then make a new post, JUST talking about Otavalo...

This last picture down at the bottom is what my bed looks like everyday when I come back from work or school, the empleada, Brisa, washes my clothes and even fixes my bed!!!! ridiculous!

Despues de una semana...

I officially made it through one week abroad and have only 122 more days to go....

I feel somewhat accomplished. I have yet to have a ¨breakdown¨, two out of the 6 of us that are in the program have succomb to the breakdown, although i did count down all the days I have left and put them on my calendar.

This past weekend, some friends from the program and I went to El Centro de Quito, or the more colonial and older part of the city. Fue muy bellismo. Cada iglesia està muy bellìsima con sanctuarios con muchas esculturas de madera. We walked for hours, and found a neat museum that only cost a dollar with great views of the city and told a lot about the history of Quito, Ecuador and it´s inhabitants even before the Incas.

At night the one Ecuadorian friend took us to some night clubs in an area that slightly resembled New Orlean´s famed Bourbon Street, more like a quarter of the debachery...which was a good thing.

The next day I woke up at 11am to my host brother, Juan Pablo, asking me if I wanted to help his abuelita(grandmother) help move. Of course I said yes, y ahora me duele mi espalda hasta sàbado cuando les ayudè!!! Apparently the grandmother had her own T.V. cooking show at one point when we unloading the literally over a 1,000 books from her house to the truck, I saw one and was like...¨wait a minute¨.

Some general observations: NOBODY says adios here, it feels about as old as saying automobile instead of car. EVERYBODY says ciao. I feel ignorant if I say adios. Also, chevere is all the rave here. It´s the U.S. equivalent of cool. Professors say ¨superchevere¨ and chevere after everything...it´s pretty chevere, haha.

Remember when I mentioned that my study abroad experience would be so unique because of my the required service-learning facet...that´s turning quite sour, quite rapidly. So in the application there were a good two pages asking you to detail what type of service you´d like to be doing and with who and rank them. I was originally slated to work at a school called Colegio Ipatia Cardenas. Then when the IPSL sevice coordinator picked me up on Monday, we went to another school because apparently the other one had too many volunteers. We ended up waiting about an hr for the director or principal to come and then she gave us 5 min to tell us to come back NEXT monday. Victoria, the coordinator, said, No me gusta and we were off to Chicos de la Calle, a site where another girl in the program is working.

Upon entering we find out that padre Rodrigo had passed in December. Already an ominous sign right? So we went in and got put into their computer system but they seemed very busy and not too receptive. I was told to come back today, Wednesday for my first day. Victoria me dijo que necesito llegar a las ocho. Lleguè mas temprano a las siete y media. They didn´t open till 9!!! I called victoria at 8:15 and she told me to wait, so i did, another 45min!! All that only to find out that they were too busy today and I should come back on Friday. I understand that ...¨stuff happens¨. So I´m really not too worried, but I hope this service thing works its way out soon.

Time to go struggle through some reading, in spanish of course, for my service learning class at 2:30!!!

Oh and this weekend we might go to Otavalo, a largely indìgenas town that has become a tourist hotspot for weaved apparrel...leave a comment and I might get you something!

Ayer, El Segundo Dia de Orientacion

I was going to post my first two days together but ended up writing too damn much...sorry.....

So yesterday started off interesting because I got to take the bus to and from USFQ. All the other students had to be there at 9:30...Chi and I got a phone call at night indicating that we needed to be there at 8:30 because the rest of the students in my program had arrived. There are seven of us in total,however I´m the only G...guy, which can be a good thing ;). Again, the program is called International Partnerships in Service-Learning and Leadership. We all have one class that we will take together, Social Organizations and Development, and we all have a site that we will be doing community service with 20hrs a week. Mine is called Colegio Ipatia Cardenas...I hear it´s far from where I live but that´s about all I know. Today I´ll find out what exactly I´ll be doing.

At first I took the wrong red bus but eventually figured it out and got to USFQ with 10min to spare, but it turns out I got there before most of the other students anyway. Our profesor, Tania Ledergerber, introduced herself and talked a bit about IPSL and then she helped us with registration because there were still some kinks to be worked out. After that we all went to more orienation al coliseo, Collessium.

I walked into this profesor talking about the different accents and languages found in the country of Ecuador, roughly the size of Colorado. He then went on a spiel about accents of Cuenca, a southern Ecuadorian town and how they could be equated to the Southern accents found in ....guess where...yes Alabama. I should´ve walked up and slapped him, jk. It was true, but I like the Southern accent. He then went on a racist tirade about security in big cities and how Quito is like Chicago or New York in los Estados Unidos. But he had never been robbed in Qutio in 50 some odd years but he gave a telling story about his experience in New York. Within ten minutes there were three attempted robberies in a McDonalds. Guess who the culprits were...yes you know...it´s on the tip of your tongue....the criminally and violently predisposed BLACKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two blacks came and stole a japanese family´s bag then while he and the father of the japanese family chased the two down, the profesors family was robbed by knife in the same McDonalds.

MORAL OF THE STORY... be wary of those evil Blacks, look over you shoulder, hold your wife close, and if he reaches in his back pocket for his wallet to show you I.D. don´t hesitate to unload 41 bullets in him because it very well might be a GUN!!!! of course this is all satire but that´s what i´m sure the overwhelmingly white majority of international students pulled from this charla(speech). check out this neat link for more on the irrationality of black criminals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE

Anywho, after a long 4hr orientation session that included a long and very scary story about thievery and crime in Quito our group of 7 and two professors from the program left to go eat on IPSL. It was a semi-mexican restaurant with pizza and wraps...good food. We tried to purchase cell phones...but they were too expensive. I got to call home though for 15 cents a min. not too bad compared to cingular´s 2.50 a min.!!!

By that point we had formed a solid group of about 7 students. We all left USFQ on the green bus back to Quito. We all got on the red bus and traveled for a good 20min to central Quito, that is more colonial and wow, I swear every vista es bellismo(every view is gorgeous...really). The picture at the top is one from right outside the university. See the green bus???? The ones below are of our venture to colonial Quito where we discoverd una huelga(a protest). It was small but there were maybe 50-100 chapas(cops, slang for police) all around with guns. When I say guns, I mean GUNS, like ones that take your life not injure you but END you....haha. A little scary but so long as you have your wits about you and stay out of harms way...you´re good.

From there we took two taxis to la Mariscal which is a gringo area with bars, restaurants and clubs...aka Birmingham´s Southside area times 10. Me, Chisara and Bastian were in one taxi and arrived at the wrong restaurant called the Coffeetree. There were two and the taxi took us to the wrong one. So we asked about 10 different people where the OTHER coffeetree was and ended up walking about 25 blocks until we found it. Our other friends were half-way through they´re meal at that point. But it was all good, we ate, I had un hurucan(huricane, an awesome drink from New Orleans, very fruity).

Again one hell of a day and night...I just hope the rest aren´t as adventurous as this one.....

ciao por unos dias

ps quite possibly the best item I brought to quito was the 39 bolsilla(pocket) micro-suede jacket my wonderful mother purchased. In this jacket I conceal my notebooks, camera, pens,pencils and countless other trinkets....thanks

The First Day a USFQ

The past two days have been a learning experience to say the least...

It all started at 7:45 when my host mom, Lorena, drove me to USFQ which is a good 20-30min ride from my apt. in Quito. Along the way she pointed out the buses that I should take and the various stops. Upon arriving to USFQ in the city of Cumbaya I´m sure I looked like a deer stuck in the headlights of an oncoming car. I had seen the layout of the University online and it didn´t look that large but it damn sure did that first day. I walked into the lobby where an orientation leader person directed me to orientation for new students, in very fast spanish. I knew that it was the wrong orientation and simply said ¨Donde¨and she knew that I needed to go to orientation for international students. That seems to be the paradox of being Aladdin(in other words, not looking like a gringo, or white foreigner)

In other parts of the world, Mexico, gringo is a somewhat pejorative word in reference to whites and Americans. However, here in Ecuador gringo is a common word for foreigners and Ecuadorians will often refer to gringos as gringitos making it more familiar. Another surprise is the word negro, black as we know, but in reference to Black people as well. My mexican friend, Fidel Castro(no affiliation with the Cuban liberator), indicated that negro is somewhat of a slur and that moreno was more ¨P.C.¨to use in reference to those of African descent.

After getting lost and going to the Office of International Programs I found my way to a plaza with tons of other students and tables set up with group numbers on them. I was hoping that I´d be in the same group as Chisara because our last names are so close, Ezie and Foster, alas she was in group 4 and I in group 5. I was expecting everybody to be speaking English since it was the first day, but all these super-motivated kids were speaking Spanish so there was some awkward silence during meet and greets until I got into the swing of things. It flowed better but I was still in caveman mode.

People I´ve met thus far: Bastian, from Alemania(Germany), Missy Green, from Ole Miss(Finally someone from the South), Ryan, from Michigan State, Jason, from N.C. State and several other international students.

It was typical orientation with several speakers talking about Quito, USFQ and how unique of an opportunity this is. Two words I learned at orientation were ¨gua gua¨ which in Quito means baby but in Puerto Rico means the bathroom. Also ¨chapi chapi¨which means half and half, more often in reference to mestizos or persons who are half Indigenous and half European...and I guess to some degree, my ethnicity.

After tours in such some friends and I ventured outside of the gates of USFQ to a pizzeria of all places. It was different, cheap, and good. I got a personal pizza, papas fritas(fries), a drink and service for $3!!! Since Chisara was in another group we didn´t eat together, because we couldn´t find each other, however upon leaving the restaurant we ran into each other. We walked around some more and caught the bus back to Quito together.

Bus info: So there is a very main road where the Eco Via or el bus rojo as I call it runs called el 6 de Diciembre. For my Birimingham folks...think of it as a very very long six lane University Boulevard with the two inside lanes reserved for the bus. I take that bus in Quito to get to the North Station where the buses stop and turn around. It´s about 8 or 9 stops from where I live. Then I catch a green bus across the street that goes to Tumbaco, but it´s first major stop is Cumbaya where USFQ is located. This road is much more rural and goes on a highway through the mountains and is very scenic as much of Quito is. Also they ALL cost one quarter to ride...pretty nice compared to the wonderful Metro of Birmingham.

After Chisara and I got off the green bus we both got on the red bus together however she only has 2 stops from the station until she gets off where as i have several more. In true, Theodorian fashion...I forgot the stop that I was supposed to get off at. But no need to fret I got off on accident at one stop after I was supposed to and had an adventurous hour long hike/walk up and down hills until I found the crossing of Coruña y Itturey Manuel...where the apt is located. We had hamburguesas and sopa de pollo(chicken soup) for dinner and I was exauhsted

That was my first day, hectic...but an experience to say the least

Ciao, Teodoro

Arrival and Day One

Phew, the past 24 hours have been crazy.

I arrived at the Atlanta airport at 10:30 and the plane was supposed to leave at 10:55, fortunately the flight was delayed till 12 so I made it. I got to Miami airport around 3 and met up with my travel buddy Chisara. We left at 5:40 for our four hour flight to Quito...needless to say it was the longest four hours of my life. When they began to serve the microwaved chicken and beef we ran into a ton of turbulence and it got a little scary for about 20 min and nobody could eat. Eventually we made it to Quito though safe and sound.

I had never been through customs before and don´t ever wanna go back. The line was superlong and we waited for 30min in line!! After getting through customs Chisara and I searched for our luggage for 20min before realizing that it was behind the American Airlines stand! From there we exited to the lobby of the airport where the scene was just like the movies with tons of people everywhere holding up signs with names on them. Sure enough there were to signs with Chisara and Theodore on them.

I met and introduced myself to my host father Ernesto Ribadeneira. From there we proceeded through the expected awkward ride to his family´s apartment. However, it was a little less awkward than I had imagined, he was very nice and spoke VERY slow which was VERY helpful. The apartment is a very nice three story space in which his wife Lorena and three kids, Lorena, Juan Pablo and Andres live. They are all 16 or older so the gifts I got them, UAB keychains and hats, are perfect. The parents gave me a shake made of tomates de arbol, it tasted like a strong strawberry shake without all the sugar.

My room is small and so is the bathroom but I have them both to myself so I´m not complaining. There´s a picture above of my bed and all my clothes that I packed in special ziplock bags that vacuum the air to conserve space. I didn´t realize it until the morning but the view from my window is phenomenal. To the right you can see a mountain by the name of Pinchincha which is also the name of the province in which Quito is located. We had a late Sunday breakfast at 11:00 with eggs,ham and toast. And to drink we had more tomate de arbol. Then Andres showed me the upstairs terrace...again phenomenal views of the city. From there mis padres, Ernesto y Lorena, took me to their Sunday getaway about 15 min away that was further in the mountains. It was gorgeous and every Sunday Ernesto and the families of his 3 brothers and sisters and their kids go there to eat and have fun. There we ate a lot of food. It was similar to a cookout or BBQ, minus the BBQ and plus Ecuadorian food.

We began with chaves which looked like very large boiled lima beans that they salted and ate with and without the skin. Then they offered vino(red wine). I don´t drink wine but didn´t want to be rude and suffered through two glasses. I didn´t catch the name of the next course of food but they were hotdogs chopped into 3 pieces and served with rolls. We then had some pasty potato soup that was pretty good. In Ecuador, stews and soups are important parts of their meals. Next was arroz con maiz(rice and corn), steak(steak), ensalada(self explanatory) and baked potato. All the food was very good.

Well tomorrow my host mom Lorena will be taking me to USFQ(Universidad de San Fransisco de Quito) for orientation at 8:15 so I´m definitely gonna get some good sleep tonite.

BUENA NOCHE!

ps

Everybody down here says Ciao and not Adios or Hasta Luego/Manana. Also when greeting a woman a kiss on the cheek is kosher...intersante

Pre-Departure Anxiety

Welcome all to my blog!
My goal is to post at least once a week with an update on my study abroad experience in Quito, Ecuador for any and all to see. At this point I am exhausted from a day of packing and visiting friends. I should be getting my beauty rest soon, but I will definitely be sleeping on the plane.

Some Logistical Info you should know:

1. I'm flying out of Atlanta,GA tomorrow/today at 10:55am. I'll arrive in Miami,FL shortly after 12 and then at 5:40 I will be on my flight to Quito,Ecuador with my travel buddy Chisara Ezie.
   
2. I'm studying abroad with International Partnerships for Service-Learning and Leadership or IPSL for short.
3. I'll be taking 12 or 15 credit hours at La Universidad de San Francisco de Quito...and NO there is no affiliation with San Francisco,CA!
4. I'm a 20 yr old Junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) seeking a BA African-American Studies and a minor in Spanish and English.

There will be more to come later. I'm going to sleep for a good two hours and then hit the road to Atlanta with the parents to send me off. Wish me Luck!!!