In Ecuador!

Well, I have survived the trip down and am currently writing from an Internet Cafe in Quito, Ecuador! The trip down to Miami was nice, fairly uneventful, and we stayed at a hotel with everyone else. Since all of us from the DC area got down there early, we had a decent amount of time to hang out, which was really good, because we got to meet a lot of the other volunteers in a very informal setting (hotel pool+a case of beer). The night was filled with meeting everyone there, and unfortunately NOT watching the wake game, we didnt get FSN in Miami. Then, the next morning, we woke up at 430 and left for the airport. This flight was also pretty uneventful, I watched ¨In Bruge¨ and part of Iron man, and talked with this native girl who had lived in Salamanca for a year and was now travelling to visit her family in Guayaquil. I´m pretty sure she wanted me, and she was holding back tears when she found out that I was going to be in Machala.

We got into Quito and immediately went to the hotel we´d be staying at, where we had a Pizza Hut lunch, and started our orientation process. Everyday here will be incredibly busy, but the activities and lessons they have will be a lot of fun. What also makes it easy to deal with a full schedule are the people I´m here with. This group is pretty sweet, full of people that are easy to interact with and, more importantly, can take my smart ass sarcastic ways and throw them right back at me. There´s been a lot of laughter and good times already, and I´m looking forward to this upcoming month. The only negative to my stay in Quito is that I´ll be staying with a host family that lives an hour outside the city...and since we have activities starting at 7 almost everyday, I´ll be waking up at the ungodly hour of 530 to get to our center. I think, however, when we all go out during the weekends, I may look into getting a hotel room, because I´m not trying to ride the bus an hour back to the house at 3 in the morning....

Last night we went to a Mongolian barbeque in a hot spot of Quito, and this afternoon we´ve walked around the city a bit and hung out at a cafe. It´s pretty amazing how quick my Spanish is coming back, especially since I havent had a class since fall of senior year, but yesterday I was able to successfully hold a conversation with my cab driver about finding an Ecuadorian wife and staying in Quito for the rest of my life...No worries, that was his suggestion not mine. Tonight we have a host family meeting and we´ll be moving from the hotel to our host houses, and tomorrow we have a picnic with all the volunteers and their host families. At the end of this upcoming week I´ll actually be travelling the 12 hours to Machala to meet with my host family there and my director at the school, so that should be pretty interesting.

Anyways, I´m here, safe, and pretty happy, and for the current time, things are going pretty well. Keep sending me emails to tell me how its going back home and I´ll make sure to update as much as possible.

Oh, and I´ve let everyone in on my plan to breed a soccer team, and now people are going to be calling me Papa Chadwick....I´d appreciate it if that caught on back home...

Ciao!

-BRYCE