Many things have happened since my last entry.  Due to some complications, I moved to a different host family on Monday of this week.  My new host family is very nice.  My host mother’s name is Yoli or “Mami Yoli”; my host father’s name is Eugenio.  I think they have at least one daughter living in the house, but I have not met her yet.  We live in a house at the end of a quiet street.  My room is much larger than my previous room, and it is completely decked out in shades of pink and peach.  There is one other student living here as well; his room is very blue.  The house is a little farther away than my previous home so I need to take two buses to get to school.  It takes about 40 minutes.  There is a lot of traffic in Quito!

School continues to be challenging.  We are still working on grammar, and we will continue until the end of next week.  So many verbs, so easy to make a mistake!!  Nevertheless, I think it’s been important for me to review some of the grammatical structures.  I will have to do a final project before my times ends here.  It includes a 30 minute presentation and a paper.  I have decided to investigate the Conquest and Colonization of Ecuador. 

I’ve gotten used to the beautiful landscape here.  Tall mountains surround the city and houses creep up the steep mountainside.  The mornings are generally bright and warm, but as the afternoon continues, sheets of clouds come over and slide down the mountains slowly covering the city.  I’ve also really enjoyed some of the great foods here.  There is a lot of bread!  I’m not used to eating so much bread, but it’s fresh and filling.  Ecuador also has a huge variety of fruits, fruits that I have never heard of or seen before.  Take bananas for example.  There are green bananas (verde), red bananas (rosado I think), small bananas (orlito), banano/a/platano, Maqueno, and maduros.  There are probably more, and I may have messed a few of these names up, but you get the point!  Anyway, I’ve enjoyed trying some of the fruits.  I generally have fresh juice (blackberry is probably one of my favorites so far) for breakfast each morning.  In addition to fruits, another new food has been quail eggs!!  They were delicious!

That’s about it for now.  More adventures are in the works for the future!  Chao