30.8.08

FTJ: 8-23-08

So, after getting off the plane, we took a bus from Quito to some oter place, I don't remember the name, with some girls from Iceland and Japan. And the hills! We drove up and down and up and down! It was insane! Most people didn't understand why it was so amazing, but us from Florida understand. Probably some from Kansas, too. (NOTE: In Florida, there are no hills. At all. Were the sea level to rise 20 feet, all of Florida would be underwater.) We slept in these cabins that have several beds, and I thought back to what Jesse said abot bed bugs and fleas, and I slept above the covers.

It's kind of cold here, like 60 degrees. It's sweatshirt weather.

When I came out in the morning, I looked around and saw mountains.


Mountains are everywhere. They get fog because clouds drift into the city. Seriously. At first, I couldn't tell there were mountains on the horizon because clouds were in the way. We are really high up right now. It's pretty crazy, and I'm supposed to go even higher into the mountains, 12000 ft. in Otavalo. (Hindsight: It's not 12000 ft. up. It's even lower than Quito. I don't know where I got that ridiculous number.) So far I haven't had any trouble breathing so far, so that's promising.

I'm actually not sure if I'm going to Otavalo or not. The stuff I received from AFS definitly said Otavalo, but I haven't met anyone else here out of sixty six people going there.

I talked to one of the AFS women, and she said that there is no Otavalo chapter of AFS, so I'm just going with the Ibarra group, and all my activities will be with them. She also said that Otavalo is an amazing city, so I'm really looking forward to it. It's supposed to be the market capital of Ecuador. Well it's sweet, whatever it is.

This morning, I went to the camp store to buy a bottle of water. It cost 30 cents, but the smallest bill I had was a $10, so I had to use that. It was really embarassing, because the woman at the counter almost didn't have change for it. On the plus side, I did get some sweet Ecuadorian coins. They use the coins and bills here the same as American money. (Hindsight: There are no Ecuadorian bills equivalent to the dollar, only coins.) It's really cool and convenient.

So, there was a really long preseentation in which all the countries gave a presentation on their culture and what they thought about Ecuador. There were people from Norway, France, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Italy, Denmark and Belgium. There were three girls from Finland, and they were very pale, very blonde, and very blue eyed. We also had to do some cultural talent. The Americans did a pyramid, which I guess is more Egyptian, but whatever.

So I figured out that I'm leaving on June 23rd. So...

>251 days left (very approx.)

(Hindsight: It was actually 302.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just a thought: 66 people in your AFS group, 66 MITES 2008 kids.

-M.

P.S.- I hope you're having fun Jakers, don't let the bedbugs bite and all that.
P.P.S- HTML may not work in AIM but it works here. ~_^ ;) ~_-