Bienvenidos!

Bienvenidos a todos! Welcome to my blog everyone! As you may well know, for the next several months I will be posting about my experiences studying abroad in and around Quito, Ecuador. I've already been here almost a week and am only just posting now but I will not to make a habit of procrastinating so. This will have to be a recap of my first few days so it'll be the abridged version.

So let’s start from the beginning. I woke up the morning I left at 6 to get ready for my flight at 10:15. I said goodbye to my parents at security and I was off, flying for the first time by myself. I was nervous but I made it no problem. While I was sitting on the plane, waiting for it to take off, I saw Emily and Chris, two girls from the Illinois group, get on the plane! I was excited to see familiar faces. The in flight “entertainment” on the airplane was The Bounty Hunter. Needless to say I was not entertained.

At our layover in the hellish Miami airport (it's one long corridor with no moving sidewalks and of course we had to go from one end to the other) we hung out together until our next flight. Our flight to Quito was delayed but we eventually got there without any other problems. In the airport lobby were about a million people with signs. I saw Chris and Emily’s first but then I saw mine “Caitlin Giullotto UIllinois.” My host mom, Guadalupe, greeted me with one kiss on the cheek and we got into her car and drove off. We got there in the dark but her house is lovely. Guadalupe showed me around- this place is huge! She even has a library for God’s sake! Her son, Patricio, was at the beach with friends that weekend so I didn't get to meet him until Monday. I have my own room, “tu paraiso” according to Guadalupe, and even my own bathroom! Her kitchen is enormous- mom would be jealous.

The next morning Guadalupe called me down to breakfast which was way too much food for me. Guadalupe asked me what I wanted for breakfast and I said fruit and yogurt would be fine. I wasn’t really hungry so I didn’t want a lot. I followed her downstairs to the kitchen and met her maid/cook who lives in a little guest house in the back yard. I think her name is Miria but I’m not sure, it sounds different every time Guadalupe says it. Later I met Miria’s son but I didn’t catch his name.

So Guadalupe poured me some yogurt out of what looked like a milk jug and gave me some sort of bran cereal with dried fruit in it. When she asked me if I wanted milk and I said I didn’t want it warm she looked confused. She looked even more confused when I poured it on my cereal. Apparently she mixes her cereal with yogurt! As I’m eating she brings me a grilled cheese sandwich and Miriam brings me a huge apple. So now I’m trying to figure out how much to eat so as not to be rude but also not explode. It was a delicate balance but I think I managed.

Then Guadalupe took me on a little tour of Cumbaya (the suburb of Quito where we live and where the university is) though most everything was closed because it was Sunday. We went to a little store where she seemed to know the owners and then to the Supermaxi- an American sized grocery store- where she wanted me to pick out food that I liked, For the most part I had no idea what to get- I didn't know half of the fruits there!

After the store we went to get some awesome fruit ice cream. I think I tried five or six of them because Guadalupe kept telling the guy to give me more samples of the fruits I didn’t know. They were all delicious but I don’t really remember which is which. I ended up getting a cone with blackberry and mandarin orange. It was so good! Guadalupe also went ahead and got a container with several scoops of different flavors for later. We came back for lunch, which is their biggest meal of the day here, which was soup, spaghetti with chunks of fish and salad. Then we both took naps before going to mass.

During mass I started to feel light headed and a little sick to my stomach so I had to sit down. I really don’t know what happened but it passed in just a couple minutes. Guadalupe thought it was low blood sugar so on the way home we stopped to get something sweet for us to eat. We stopped at what seemed like the only open store in Cumbaya- it was dark by now- and she bought a little blackberry cheesecake. Apparently blackberry is one of her favorites. I don’t really like cheesecake but that was all this store sold and I couldn’t say no, so I decided I’d just choke it down for her. When we got back she served me a quarter of the cheesecake so I started to panic. I didn’t think I could eat the whole thing without puking! When I finally dove in it wasn’t really that bad. It tasted more like mom’s white jello than cheesecake. Plus the blackberries on top helped too. By the time I finished my piece I was beginning to like it!

While eating the news was on and I learned about these people from Bangladesh and Pakistan who are stuck in Ecuador because some coyotes told them they would bring them to “America,” which they assumed meant the United States, and dumped them in Ecuador once they were paid. After cheesecake Guadalupe pan fried some ‘empanadas de verde’ which are empanadas made from green bananas and filled with cheese I think. They smelled really good but I wasn’t crazy about them. I have a feeling that I’ll grow to like them more. I also had a giant cup of ‘mokachino.’ Seriously, it was like a cereal bowl with a handle. Then we went upstairs to watch tv but in separate rooms. I fell asleep watching this cool public tv show about Ecuador.

That's all for now. I know it's really long but if you stuck it out, I commend you!

Hasta luego,

Caitlin