Quito to Loja

5/19/2011

Well today was another early one, we all got up by 5:30 and were out the hostal by 6 am and back to the aeropuerto by 7:00 for our flight to loja at 8:40. Let me tell you national flights (in country) way more crazy than international people running everywhere and three businessmen cut in front of us getting our tickets, they just like ran and ducked under the airport line thingys and whoop got their tickets. The security line was long but moved very quickly! Then came time to put my bags on the scanner and walk through the metal detector. Three times, I had to go through the detector haha! I forgot to take off my hat, and then shoes/wallet/passport, and finally it was my glasses! Next time I think I’ll be a little more prepared now that I’ve done it once.  During the flight we were  treated with a sight for well untraveled eyes I guess, it was a VOLCANO ERUPTING. Okay, so it wasn’t actually erupting lava but there was smoke coming from it and some of the people got some good pictures of it (I was on the wrong side of the plane)!  I was nervous but excited to go to Loja, but finally we were going to our casas (homes) and going to get settled in for 8 weeks. We landed and Loja Province is way prettier than Quito. Now to skip all the details of the scenery just check out photobucket.com/lostintheparamo for pictures!

We get dropped off at our home after the first 2 people who got families with kids our age that spoke English and Spanish. So Eric and I were pretty excited to get to ours, well it’s an apartment owned by a very nice but energetic person!  I could NOT understand a word she said in Spanish (kind of reminded me of my sister haha) she was speaking a million miles an hour! Eric and I are in our own little “studios” and as of right now there is no cocina (kitchen) in sight. So it looks like we’ll be eating out a lot for the next 2 months.

So about our little “studios” they have their own bathroom, twin captains bed (mine), full bed (erics), and a little closet as you’ll see in the photos! I walked in and there was no door on my bathroom which has as of now has been fixed by the hyper land-lady and a nice handi-man. I took the first shower, water wasn’t the hottest which could be a problem because I like hot showers haha (you know what im talking about mom and dad). We thought we had gotten kind of screwed not having a family and living in an apartment building that is currently undergoing renovation! But in all reality we are the closest to the best restaurants as we found out on our way home today from the University of Loja and everyone else is jealous of us for sure!

During all this one thought crossed my mind! My research is going to be speaking Spanish and recording answers and understanding personal cues and attitudes, and as of right now I.D.S (I don’t know S*&%^) haha. There’s always room to improvement and my  vocabulary is already coming back to me so hopefully over the next week or so I will gain A LOT more, and it is probably a very good thing that I brought my Spanish textbook with me!