Arrived at my home in Quito!!!

Okay, I am ridiculously, absurdly excited to be in Quito. I met my host "sibling" (the other gal who is staying with my host family) at the airport today and together, we went with our host family to their house. The house is quite nice, very modern, behind a gate and alarm, with three floors and roof access, and four dogs. All the members of the family speak insanely good English. Our host father is a child psychologist and speaks Spanish, English, and German, all fluently and with a superb accent. I don't know yet what our host mother or host sister do, but all three of them are unbelievably kind. They were happy to chat with us today but promised that starting tomorrow morning, it's going to be all Spanish. That's fine with me, though. I want to learn more Spanish and I'm excited for the challenge.

The trip back from the airport was interesting. I couldn't figure out how to get my seatbelt to work, so I just sat on it while we careened down the incredibly twisty roads from the north of Quito to the valley, where our family lives. Before we had even gotten out of the airport parking lot, another car started pulling out of a parking spot right in front of us. Without even slowing down, our host father just flashes his high beams a few times and barrels right in front of him, commenting that he bet the other guy didn't want his paint messed up. Flashing the brights seems to be the most common form of traffic communication in Quito, and we used it several times on the way home, such as when changing lanes suddenly or when passing a large truck.

I decided that the most important thing to do upon arriving in the house was get on the internet to check facebook and post on my newly minted blog. My host sister spent the time unpacking her suitcase, which impressed me since I'm the type that will happily live out of a suitcase for months and she finished before I had even finished my last paragraph. That being said, she went straight to facebook afterwards... Such Americans!