So I have decided to create a blog of my experiences while I am in Ecuador. I was not going to but after being here for two days I have realized it will be a great way to keep in touch with everyone back home and document my experiences.
I am here in Quito, Ecuador working with a school to help teach English and Phys Ed. along with assisting the teachers with other subject areas they may need a hand in.
I will try to update this as big events happen and eventually maybe post some photos but I am a newbie at this so it migh take a few posts to get good at this!
We arrived in Quito late on Wednesday night after a very long, but interesting day of flying and airport "down" time.
Wednesday's Adventures:
This was by far the most interesting day of travelling that I have ever had! I arrived at the airport, nice and early, at 330am. By 4am all of our group was here excpet one who had a late taxi but still made it on time. Everyone had two bags to check except me, meaning that we had 17 bags in total to check. The rep at WestJet tells Sara that it is a $21 charge for each second bag..we said we were told that we could have two so by the time he talked to other WJ reps and American Airlines and after 2o minutes they said it was ok to check two bags. My suitcase was 48lbs so I was cutting it very close to having to pay overweight fees but a lot of stuff in my suitcase is supplies I will be donating so coming home should be a breeze. One volunteer, Chris, was having a hard time with one of the reps and eventually made it on to the plane only a few minutes late. Once we arrive in the Toronto airport we find out that WJ did not transfer our bags for us so we have to go get our bags from luggage pick up and then wait in a security line for 45 minutes and then head to our gate where we had about 15 minutes left to eat some food. $13 for breakfast, not my ideal budget but I was starving! This flight went by super fast and we arrived in Miami where it was +31!!! We went to check if our luggage had been dropped off, only 4 bags were so we had to go across the whole airport to re-check these 4 bags. During this time we got to walk outside which was awesome! Some of us already had boarding passes but to no shock WJ screwed up and a few people did not have theirs. The security lady told us to just get them from the automatic thing so everyone did that. Chris, who was having problems earlier that day got promted to go talk to a service rep. The lady told him that WJ released his ticket and he had a reservation but no seat...how that makes sense is beyond me! after 30 minutes of phone calls and waiting he got a boarding pass giving us just enough time to grab a bite and board the plane. So our 6 hours of down time in the airport that our itenary inteded for turned out to be only about 45-60min !!! On our plane to Quito we found out that Miley Cyrus was right at the front in first class! As I am doubting this news the girls sitting beside me inform me that they are part of her dance and singing crew and she is going on tour through South America..although I am not a huge fan of her, what are the odds that this would happen!?
After 17 hours of plane rides and airports we arrived in beautiful Quito. Our hotel is absolutely amazing, it is more similar to a mini apartment than a hotel...I am glad that this is what I have to call home for the next month!
I will end this post here, sorry for the length!
I will post Thursday, Friday and Saturday's events soon!
So much has already happened for me to fall in love with this city, I can't wait for the next three and a half weeks!!
over and out -d
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