Hola from Ecuador!

Hola! Sorry, I haven’t written in here awhile; I finally figure out I could type my entry in my laptop.
Houston sounded really cool, Dad, and I’m so glad you were able to be home for all of Monday and Friday.
Let’s see, I had a ridiculous day packing on Friday. Trying to fit all my stuff for four months into two suitcases that both weigh under fifty pounds for not easy. I’m pretty sure one of my suitcases was 49.9999999999 pounds and the other one close to that.
So after a pretty smooth flight to Houston, I wound up with four hours to spare. I spent the time talking to other random people my age traveling to South America and hunting down a mailbox to mail the traveling bracelet to some of my friends at U of I. I soon learned from the shopkeepers that the nearest mailbox was outside security which I didn’t have time to go to, so I finally played dumb and asked a pilot where the nearest mailbox was. He said outside security and offered to put my letter in it. So hopefully he did mail my letter, otherwise some pilot is wandering around wearing our cool U of I bracelet.
So after a billion (okay, a little over 4) hours of waiting, I finally got on the flight to Quito. We arrived around 11:15 p.m., and after getting my ridiculously large suitcases, I went through customs to a huge crowd of people. There was a guy holding a sign that said “Cristina Bears.” I figured that must be for some other exchange student because (a) my host family had received my name and its spelling and (b) my host family consisted of a 60-year old divorced lady, not a guy my age. However, he kept saying “Christine! Christine!” to me and when I finally was like “¿Mande?” he said (in English!) “Your host mom is over here,” and led me to this tiny lady who hugged me. It turned out that the guy was named Esteban, and was the son of another host mother and was helping to track down some of us exchange students. My host mom, Patricia, had forgotten the sign she made for me at her apartment and so had to make one from what she remembered at the airport.
Patricia and I then took a cab to her apartment which is in the city of Quito. There’s a security guard who opens the main gate for us and then it takes four different keys to unlock all the gates and doors to get into her apartment. Still, I feel pretty safe. I mean, I’m not gonna go running through the streets at midnight, but I feel pretty comfortable walking by myself during the day. As soon as she showed me my room with my bed, I crashed.
I woke up the next morning around 9:30 to breakfast. I think she thinks all Americans love Corn Flakes, so every morning I eat Corn Flakes with jam on top (she suggested it, and it is pretty good) and milk with some sort of fruit. The day after I got there, I went with Patricia and a friend of hers to La Mitad del Mundo. I actually had no idea where we were going. I don’t know if they didn’t tell me, or my Spanish really sucks that bad (the latter is probably right), but I was just along for the ride. It wasn’t until we arrived at our destination and I saw a large red line running along the ground that I realized we were at the equator!
Then we had lunch which is the biggest meal of the day here. They don’t eat much for breakfast or dinner, but lunch is HUGE! One of the dishes I got was “Choclo con Queso,” or Corn with Queso. I got the dish and it came with a corn on the cob with large kernels and a large slab of light-yellow, nearly white butter and a shaker of salt. I rolled my cob in the butter which didn’t really melt on the corn like I’m used to, but I figured it was cold. My host mom asked, “¿No quieres tu queso?”, You don’t want your queso? (I figured that queso was another word for butter as well as cheese) and I said, no, I didn’t need much. I mean, I like butter and all, but I didn’t need a gigantic slab of butter.
Then the next day at lunch, the other U of I students and I had choclo con queso except that the corn kernels were off the cob and the queso slab was cut up and mixed in with the corn. It was then that I realized that what I had thought was butter really was just queso, a piece of cheese. Yup. I felt slightly better because three other girls had thought that the cheese was butter when their host families gave them choclo con queso. I guess the lesson is that if you ever come to Ecuador and receive corn on the cob with a large slab of butter, it’s not butter! But it is good cheese.
So that was my main confusion with food, though I’ve had a million other different mix-ups already. I’m pretty sure I’ve accidently insulted half the Ecuadorians that I’ve met with my crappy Spanish or me not understanding them, but they’re all really nice.
I think my Spanish is slowly improving. Some of the U of I exchange students and I took a lesson in Ecuadorian terms. “Que rico”, (How good) “Que lindo” (How cute/pretty) and “Estoy llena” (I’m full) are great terms to know here. And I’m pretty sure the cars speed up when they see a pedestrian crossing the street in front of them. Crossing streets is probably the most exciting and scary part of my day!
Quito is absolutely gorgeous with beautiful mountains surrounding the city and lots of green! It’s definitely a new experience living in a city, but so far I like it. I’m slowly learning the busses which are insane.
I hope everyone is having a great time in Illinois! I miss and love everyone!