first day in guayaquil

ok so now i am in guayaquil. lets start with yesterday morning because thats pretty interesting. we (there were seven of us going to guayaquil) all headed for the airport at 10:30 which was supposed to give us enough time to catch a plane at 11:30 but this is ecuador and nothing really ever goes the way it is planned. its carnival weekend and many people really want to travel around because they have the whole week off. the line to check in at the airport was herendously long and we waited for about an hour-which meant our flight left without us and most of its passengers. the airline soon realized that it had well over a hundred people who missed their flight because of the long lines so they set up an auxilary flight for later that afternoon. so all of us disgruntled passengers wait for about four hours for our flight to show up-the airline had trouble finding an airplane. the seven of us spent our time watching the american tourists (who all met several stereotypes) and eating sandwiches. finally we got on our plane and took the 40 min flight to guayaquil. on the flight over i got some pretty cool pictures of the city of quito. when we got to the airport we of cource had more trouble, this time with our bags, but soon enough we exited the airport with a bunch of families we had never seen before waving signs and greeting us with a lot of excitement. my host family was tiny bit late but they showed up and we took off. ok this is where is gets interesting. right as we were walking through the parking lot i got some serious cuture shock. guayaquil feels like a completely different place than quito. for me i still think its winter but here in the southern hemisphere on basically on the equator its really hot and really humid. people dress and act like it is a sunny summer day in california. then the buildings look completely different. it feels more urban spanish than i thought it would. then we got to the family home and they show me to my room which is at the very top of the house. to get there i have to walk across this patio, it has a very interesting feel to it. after spending an hour getting settled in i spent some time with my host mom and older host sister who doesnt live at home. they are really stretching my spanish skills to the fullest extent and they speak very fast and with a very tropical accent (not a lot of s´s around here but i do like the accent). i spent about two and a half hours talking to my host family. they are very nice people and they have had a lot of experience with having exchange students. i think they said that they have had 3 others but i am the first american. after giving them my gifts from home i went out with my older host brother. we enden up meeting some of his friends and going to two really cool bars downtown. i spoke a little bit to jose (my host brother) and his friends but it was really hard because of this new way of speaking spanish. i think last night i must of said "what" about a hundred times. we came back home in the wee hours of the morning and i was VERY tired. i crashed and i didnt wake up until 10:30 which was a real bummer because i missed church and breakfast-ooops! right before writting this i went for a walk around the neiborhood. i saw this pretty nice shopping center and mall close by as well as all the other houses and i got a good feel for the neighborhood i am living in.
ok so, guayaquil is much different than i had imagined it would be in some good ways and in some not so good ways. i think it is safe to say i am still quite culture shocked. my accomidations are simple but i know i can bring life to them. this place is going to take some getting used to and i think it will be a challenge but i can do it. i miss you all and i hope you are all doing well.
-mark