I know its now sunday but i would like to start talking about friday. friday morning i finally met the other americans who i would be traveling with-there were only three of them. we spent most of the day waiting in the miami airport. as time went by i got more and more excited about going. finally we went through security and boarded our plane. i usuallly think that the first cultural expiriece comes at the airport when you see the countrymen of the nation you are visiting. this flight however was a little different. about two thirds of the flight were retired americans going to the galapagos. it was actually pretty interesting talking to them. the flight went very smothly and about 20 minutes into the flight we flew over cuba. after cuba we flew over the calmest carribean water you can think of. with about an hour left on the flight i couldnt be more excited. in the dark we flew very closely through the andes mountains, once we emerged from the fog the plane was only about 500 feet off the ground, the metropolis of quito below us. after getting out of customs at the airport we were met by some official from afs who took us to the hostel that we would be staying at: hostal la villa. once we were checking into our rooms we were met by two really enthusiastic european guys. it turned out that there were lots of other people from other countries, 12 people in total. the next morning we had breakfast provided by the hostel and then we promtly started our orientation. we were told that we would be in classes through much of the day and this was deffinatly true. after classes we (about 6 of us from the orientation) were able to go for a an hour walk. as of this morning i havent seen much of the city but it looks very beautiful. this city is really in the middle of the andes, most of the houses are in a carved out valley but a few are scattered on the surrounding mountains. the sun here is amazing. i was outside for only ten minutes yesterday and already i started to get a sunburn. im about 10,000 feet in the andes and on the equator. as far as the over all feel goes this place is a lot like parts of mexico, the city seems particularly like morelia. the people here also surprised me. getting off the plane i noticed that most of them are of native indian decent. they are very suportive and hospitible. anyway i got to get back to orientation so hopefully i will be able to post tommorow.
-mark