The Start

Choosing a picture for this day was so difficult, there were so many good ones! I decided to choose this wonderful sunset view over the clouds in Gulf of Mexico from my plane seat window, representing how this online diary will give you a window into my life.

Today was overwhelming, yet filled with excitement to say the least. Steve came to my rescue today when I left $400 and my camera in the hotel safe (smart move, annie) and it was really comforting being able to see him at my departure terminal at the airport today. I flew from La Guardia Airport in New York City to Atlanta, where I ate the most delicious froyo ever imagined. You know how typical chain froyo shops add tons of sugar to make their frozen yogurt taste like ice cream? Well, the froyo I had in Atlanta actually tasted like tart yogurt and had a good variety of pro-biotics that excited the microbiology loving side of me.

The plane rides were good, I slept a lot on the plane from New York to Atlanta and talked to a Mexican family who sat next to me. They were so impressed that I knew so many languages and that my Spanish sounded good!

Oh and there were iPad stations at the boarding gates for Delta Airlines! Like there was an iPad stationed at each seat where you could wait for your flight and surf the net and check out cool apps. It made the layover go by so quickly! I also had New York Style pizza for the first time and it was absolutely delicious, better than Chicago deep dish pizza in my opinion (prob cuz I like thin crust better)!

On the flight from Atlanta to Quito Delta provided dinner and it was honestly the best tortellini i've ever tasted. Since when was American airplane food actually good? But yeah it was amazing and the flight attendant even gave me a second meal (score!)

I also played lots of Animal Crossing on my Pikachu 3ds xl, what a good investment :)

And then... there it was. I looked out the window and saw an entire mountanous region covered in thousands and thousands of sparkling golden lights. There it was, Quito, the capital city of Ecuador I've only seen in pictures and never in real life. I felt breathless for a second there!

El Aeropuerto Mariscal Sucre is super fancy, it's brand new and going through customs was not a problem at all. I picked up my luggage at the baggage claim and walked through the giant glass sliding doors and... there they were, my host mom Jenny, her sister (my new Tia--my new aunt), and her husband (my new Tio, uncle!)

They each gave me a tight hug and a kiss on my right cheek, which surprised me but was quite nice, very friendly? xD

They asked me tons of questions and talked about what Quito was like and omg, they are so nice I don't know why I worried at all in the first place! I didn't have any problems understanding them, thankfully, but I did have slight problems talking for some reason! Like.... I guess it's so sudden being thrown into a completely 100% spanish speaking environment and it takes me awhile for my brain to switch languages?? But yeah they were super understanding and patient while I conjugated verbs and put those hundreds of spanish vocab words i memorized all these years, finally, to use xD

My flight arrived in Quito at 10:15 but we didn't get to my host family's house until 11:30pm. The highways were curving around the mountains, up and down. Completely different from the flat, lake covered forested land i'm used to seeing in Troy! They drove into a secluded white gated neighborhood and pulled up to a large yellow brick house. I was quite surprised by how fancy it is, knowing that Ecuador is a third world country.

As soon as I walked inside I met my host cousins and they're super nice too. Lots of hugs and kisses today!

And then I stepped further inside the house and OMG, it is nothing like I pictured. I expected really poor living conditions knowing that it's Ecuador but wow... shiny cherry hardwood floors, beautiful white pillars& sunny yellow curtains. Beautiful paintings and sunroom too! I walked upstairs to my room and it's absolutely beautiful, they had freshly cut flowers on my night stand and it's a huge comfy queen size bed and I get my own bathroom! Beautiful marble countertops and pretty lighting and bright royal blue curtains. I feel like a princess, my Ecuadorian home is so much fancier than mine at home! I am super excited for tomorrow (today) despite having to wake up at 6:30am!

Woot hours of sleep here I come! xD