Journey to Ecuador!

Hola amigos! 

I wanted to thank somebody on my flight for switching seats with me by giving him a little maple candy. I explained that the candy is made from dulce agua (sweet water) from certain arboles (trees) donde yo vivo (where I live), and the dulce agua (sweet water) is cocinó (is cooked) into jarabe (syrup) for pancakes. I explained the candy was solid pancake syrup. No idea if he understood... 
Oh well! He seemed to like the candy anyway. 

Writing this...

• "Estoy presentimiento en Quito. Muy bueno! Con juste un poco de español en mis orejas, estoy confidente que voy a aprender la lengua rápido. Wow!" 
  

...took me only about twice as long as it takes me to write an english paragraph of that size, which isn't too bad for my first day here (though I am sure there are grammar mistakes). Turns out I'm almost fluent!

What I am hearing is pretty neat. In essence, Ecuadorians party hard. I have great view of the mountains from my room. From this side of the building, we're hearing a spanish dance club blasting some traditional ecuadorian tunes. (Think Mexican meets Italian meets workout zumba music.) I have a recording of it below in the video! You'll hear it better if you turn your volume all the way up. Very cool. I don't understand any of it... bahaha they speak so fast! It's a good thing I'm a heavy sleeper because it is decently loud. The "dorms" in the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar residence are comparable to rooms in a 4 star hotel. We're staying here for a week before meeting our host families on Friday. We each have our own little rooms and we're sharing common rooms with 2 other people. That includes 2 bathrooms, a living area, and a kitchen. Just a tad better than first year residence! 

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View of Quito from the plane

This really is a great group. It is neat to be with people with similar ideals as me. They know the deets on Donald Trump, love Wall Street, and want to be venture capitalists just like I do! 
(Just to clarify, those are jokes.) In reality, the girls are very friendly and I'm very excited to get to know them!!

Flying in was super because even though it was night, we saw soaring mountains coming out of the city since there was a full moon. We flew by volcanoes! It would be sweet to fly during the day to see the landscape from the sky. Maybe I'll go paragliding with a go pro... When driving from the airport to the residence, we went on a bridge, looked down, and saw the bottom of a mountain crevice a few hundred feet down. Yikes! 

I don't feel the elevation much, so that's a plus. At 2,850 meters, or 9,350 feet, it is the highest capital in the world. (In comparison, Colorado has a mean elevation of 6,800 feet). Tomorrow we're going to breakfast to meet the academic coordinator, and then we're going to the travel office with visa papers and all the billions of copies my mother printed for me (gracias madre!). 

(Click to the right for more!)

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I don't feel the elevation much, so that's a plus. At 2,850 meters, or 9,350 feet, it is the highest capital in the world. (In comparison, Colorado has a mean elevation of 6,800 feet). Tomorrow we're going to breakfast to meet the academic coordinator, and then we're going to the travel office with visa papers and all the billions of copies my mother printed for me (gracias madre!). 

Largo día viajando = muy cansada Laurence... (I believe that says I had a long day and now I'm tired?) I ordered a sandwich in broken Spanish, so knowing the word for carrot (zanahoria) and cucumber (pepino) came in handy. Knowing french makes guessing words a whole lot easier. I wrote a nice long email to my family. My sisters are so furtivas (sneaky). While this is not true, furtiva is my favorite adjective.

Bottom line: I'm alive. I never took off my little theft proof purse I bought in Toronto until now. I think I might hang it over my shoulder on my wedding day... Did you know it is slash proof, scan proof, stain proof, gun proof, chainsaw proof, fire proof, machete proof, grenade proof, volcano proof, and atomic bomb proof? What a bag. More pictures to come. 

-L

This holds everything important. There are double-locking mechanisms for the straps, which are slash proof, a separate compartment for a passport, and a zipper lock that makes pickpocketing impossible. RFID blocks identity theft scanners.