Lost in Quito

So for the most part I have a good sense of direction once I get oriented. I was lucky enough to have almost a week to settle into Quito before the program started, so I got to know a lot of locations in my friend Anna's life. This has served me pretty well so far, and I have been expanding my knowledge of the city and how to get around it every day.
Today my compañeras and I took a new bus to a newish location and it all went swimmingly. This was not the case on the way home. Whitney and I took the same bus back, but it being 6 o'clock, there were a thousand people crammed onto one tiny bus, and it was raining so all of the windows were completely fogged up. We couldn't see the street names to save our lives. Eventually, we said enough was enough and figured we were sort of close to our houses (we live in the same neighborhood), and forced our way off the bus (easier said than done). Unfortunately, once we managed to squirm off the bus with our belongings, we didn't recognize any of the streets. Poo. So we started walking, hoping we would recognize something soon. As we were walking (and not recognizing anything) it was beginning to get dark, and one of the main rules is not to walk at night. Sooo we started trying to hail a taxi, to no avail, then tried calling taxis, the numbers of which we were apparently dialing wrong, all the while having forgotten our maps at home. Finally we saw a taxi on the corner with no one in it, successfully talked down the outrageous price of 3 dollars to a more reasonable 2 dollars, and were on our way home.

Things are fine now, and I have something to write about for my homework assignment "una experiencia en las calles." Also, I am safe and dry in my house well before the streets got too iffy and have survived getting lost in Quito.

Un Poquito de Quito

I'm in Quito! This is my blog to let ya'll know how I'm doing and what I'm up to in Quito. Right now I am avoiding my homework (yeah I'm as surprised as you are that there is homework abroad) and decided that it was high time to start my blog. This post will be all over the place, but no me importa.


Today I went to a market with some new friends from the program as part of "Immersion Experience 2" and I saw a thousand fruits that I didn't recognize. My host sister (who is fabulous) has been teaching me some fruit names, like tomate del arbol and naranjilla, but most of them I forget the second we move on to a new topic. After the market we went to this cute coffee shop that Anna recommended to me. The Cuban manager is very sweet and remembered me from the last couple times I'd been and we joked about how I always order americanos.

Speaking Spanish isn't nearly as scary as it was before. I still make tons of mistakes, of course, but I'm not terrified of speaking. The first night I was with my family, I was super excited, but also so stressed about my Spanish. Now I can keeping talking through my mistakes, which allows me to get way more said.

It's late now, so toodle pip