Falling in Love with Quito

Well folks, I finally did it. I left the house! I kind of had to since I had to go to orientation with Brethren Colleges Abroad (BCA), and the guy from BCA picked me up... so it really wasn't that much of a step for me per se... but I'm still giving myself mad props for it.

Orientation with BCA has been awesome. I got a lot of the really important information about living with families and "stomach ailments," but more importantly I got to get out to see the city. Yesterday we went to El Panecillo, which is this enormous hill in the middle of town. You can walk around the hill and see every part of the city from there and it's absolutely unbelievable. I can't get over how big the city is. Unreal. I highly reccommend doing a little google search for El Panecillo, or view from El Panecillo. I unfortunately didn't have my cameras so I can't make it easy for you and post pictures. There's also a gigantic statue of the virgin Mary at El Panecillo and since it's around Christmas there is an equally gigantic nativity scene set up. I didn't get to see it lit up, but from what the lights looked like in the daylight I can fairly confidently say that there is a fair amoutn of bling involved in this nativity scene.

The sad part of the orientation is that it has really made me realize how alone I am in my experience here. I know that I'll have support systems with the church and with the people I work with, but there isn't anyone else who will be going through the same experience that I am. I hadn't really thought of that before I left, but I'll be discovering things on my own rather than sharing those experiences with fellow students or VSers or whoever.

In other news, I've taken TWO (count em, two) taxis all by my lonesome and I have survived. I was worried, because I have had situations before in which a taxi driver didn't know exactly where they were going. In those situations I knew the city well enough to direct them, but in this case I would have been absolutely SOL. And to make things worse, I don't have a cell phone yet so I really wouldn't have known what to do if something went wrong. But, the important thing is that I did it. And I survived. And I'm going to get a cell phone this afternoon.

The other very important thing that is going to happen this afternoon is that I'm going to meet the family that I will likely be living with for the next seven months. I have a lot of trepidation about living with a family. I've been on my own for a while now and I'm not used to having to let someone know where I'm going or when I'll be home, so it will be a bit of an adjustment. I sometimes wish that I was going to be renting an apartment or something of that nature while I'm here, but I think that staying with a family will probably be one of the richest things about the experience. That is, if I can get my Spanish up to par enough to be able to carry on a conversation. However, I'll have you know that today we had a presentation in Spanish and I caught about 70-75%. Slowly (very, very slowly), but surely!