El dia de Viaje!

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Hey all,

So I got here to Quito just fine and I am updating this travel blog pretty soon here because we have free High Speed Internet at our "Hotel Quito" and yesterday was the craziest traveling experience of my life so far, I am sure there will be crazier ones in the near future on this adventure. When our group finally made it to Miami, it was waiting game for luggage since there was lightning and the airling AA couldn´t transport our luggage across the airfield, but we eventually got our luggage met up with our traveling coordinator Kate, she was very cool and helped us get to where we needed to go, which was the COPA check in desk where my Spanish Skills came into play, ;-)

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The lady at the desk was so awesome and nice, and she actually tested me in my Spanish and I tested her in her english, since she says she never gets to many english clients at her counter. I talked with her so long that when I looked around my group I was traveling with from Chicago was waiting for me, but I was glad I was able to have some good convo with the COPA lady and I got her picture, I will be updating pics on facebook sometime in the next couple of days...

Anyway I had one flight down and two more to go. Our group flew from Miami to Panama, and let me tell ya the flights inter Latin American are much more stress free than amaerican flights. We got served chicken with rice and junior mints, the whole works and any drink you wanted at no extra cost, I opted for water instead getting another drink. So we landed in Panama around 6 o´clock and our flight from Panama to Quito was supposed to leave around around 8 o´clock and they boarded our flight ealry around 7:15. Our flight didn´t pull away from the gate till around 8:20 and good thing it was delayed beacause before I could even get comfotable a lady passed out about 6 rows infront of me and the flight attendants were running to get first aid while the captain called fro a any doctor on board and eventually the lady was transported off, but by this time we had been sitting on the flight for two hours and in the meantime our bathrooms didn´t work because some passanger on our flight just couldn´t hold it in any longer and broke the bathroom door trying to getinto to it, because the bathroom doors we found out later automatically lock when the flight is pulling away from the gate.

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This incident was actually a blessing in disguise because I got to meet the lady sitting next to me named Evida. We started investigating the passed out lady and I found out she was traveling with a wedding group and her nephew was a piolt, but not the one on our flight, and was getting married to a flight attandant, also not on our flight. along with this tid bit of info. I found out that she used to teach Spanish as a second language in South Asia because she lived there for 4 years, because her husband got located there as manger of American Express Enterprise. She also knew how to speak Portugesse, French, English, and a littel German to put the icing on the Cake. I couldn´t blieve I landed the jackpot, espeically since I had a "B" Day, as in the seat assignment I had all day, which was the middle seat. She gave me tips on how to learn the language better, including staying away from speaking with other americans, so I wasn´t temped to speak ingles. It was definitely an eye-opening experience talking and learning from her and it started the end of my first day with good note and confidence of my Spanish Skill for the upcoming weeks.

We arrived in Quito around 11:30ish and I went to bed as soon as we got to the Hotel, not much else for the end of this day.

Today (Thursday) was an early start at 7AM and Orientation at 8AM and a 3 hour City tour starting at 9AM, the city was amazing and just like I remembered it from my previoius trip to Ecuador when I traveled to Quito. We got to travel to a the town square and experience the changing of the guard at the government palace, which I took a foto with one of the guys, who can not move an inch, it was a lot of fun and as soon as the tour guide told us that they couldn´t move I jumped right in and got some fotos of course. we saw so much of the city but my favorite parts were going inside of the huge kind f gothic cathedral with animals lining the outside in place of gargoyles like in other cathedrals around the world. I will put up pics later, but the other part was going to the art mueseum of GUAYASAMIN, the paintings were amazing and the phrase I thought was the most provoking was "I cry because I don´t have tennis shoes until I see the boy who does not have feet" This phrase was one of his phrase amongst his paintings and he depicted alot of the pain and suffering of parts of latin america and the different cultures that make up latin america, it was very cool, espeically as some of you know who took Menchaca´s class at Guilford, I can see why she gets so into this art and the stories behind each piece.

Anyway I am goingto take a nap because I am worn out from travel and the high altitude. Ciao!

Ryan