Hola!
I made it to Quito after a two hour delay in Miami (the pilot didn't show up) and arrived at 1 a.m. Quito time (currently Central time in the states). After getting to bed after three a.m. we were up and starting orientation at nine after breakfast.
The people in my group consists of twenty girls and one guy--lucky for him. I really do think there is a great group here with students from all over the country and I've already bonded with a few girls. Right now we are staying in a nice little hostel until we move in with our host families on Sunday. Then on Monday we start our Spanish classes at the Universidad de San Francisco for a few hours a day for four weeks.
The group is currently speaking mostly in English because our director wants to make sure that we understand everything during orientation. Therefore, my Spanish has not started or really improved at all as I have not had much of a chance to practice. However, my listening skills have improved as I have tried hard to listen and understand as we travelled through the city today.
Today we had a get to know each other session along with a visit from a U.S. embassy employee and then we went and had a tour of the University! The tour was in Spanish and luckily I understood about 90% of what was said as we toured the beautiful campus. The campus is slightly smaller than DePauw in a gated community, with a very colorful and calm atmosphere (I'll post pictures later). After the tour we went out to eat in the Mariscal--basically the young, hip, bars everywhere place in Quito. The food is great, abundant, and filling--everything has tasted great so far!
So, after one of the longest days on very few hours of sleep, I am off to bed!
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