Hello all. First off, some administrative stuff. For the next couple months i´ll only have internet access on the weekends. If you check here on sunday night or monday, hopefully i´ll have a new blog. Also, every volunteer who has a blog is supposed to speak with some administator about what can and cannot be said. Knowing how politically correct I am at all times, that shouldn´t be a problem. However, if you notice anything less than kosher, message me and i´ll edit it. Finally, I can´t figure how to get spell check off of spanish, so my entire blog is currently highlighted as a spelling error...so if there are some spelling mistakes, just deal with it.

ok, so...(wanted to use a dash there, but couldn´t figure it out)
I spent two days in miami getting to know everyone and learning a little bit about the Peace Corps mentality. Meetings were long and tedious...words like perserverence, flexibility, and acceptance were thrown around quite a bit. No one had opened up yet, and after keeping my guard up all day i was annoyed and exhausted. On the second day, after 9 hours of conferencing, I took a wicked nice siesta to cleans the anxious soul. I was feeling a little homesick, and all the emotional stressors were making me miss all the people I loved...namely those of you reading this blog. At this point, we had already lost one would be volunteer due to boyfriend woes. Anyway, I woke myself up and shook of the mal aire. I ended up having the best last night in the states ever. After eating sushi and doing saki bombs, we hung out in the hot tub of our swanky hotel. As we watched a tropical storm coming in off the ocean, we told stories, each more rediculous than the last. The best story came from Jimbo, a rich gold mining executive (yeah, we tore into him for that) from Arkansas. I wont tell you the details because there might be children reading, but hearing him speak Spanish with an Arkansas twang only added to the hilarity to his tall tale. Before long, the tropical storm that we were watching was upon us, and it began raining buckets on us as we swam...which was really fun. We continued hang out, moving to the pool and playing sharks and minnows untill a shocked security guard came to kick us out.

The next day, the tropical storm delayed our plane by three hours. When he finally got to Quito(where we will be untill sunday...forgot to mention that before), we were hustled through a special line in customs by a PC agent. The airport was one big party. Hundreds of latinos were cramed in, waiting to meet loved ones coming off the plane. The shouting, dancing, and hand made posterboard signs made the venue feel more like a soccer stadium than an airport. I remember waiting in a line where everone had documents ready. Some latin offical came up to me and said something in spanish, which needless to say i did not understand. After motioning for a while with some kind of paperwork in hand, he got frusterated and moved onto someone else...i was suposed to wait there and find my paperwork, which i didn´t do. im not in jail right now, so i figured it wasn´t important.

After being greated by equally crazy current PC volunteers, we got into a bus, which proceded to pull off a masterfull 12432452352363 point turn to get out the the tiny parking lot. no joke...it took us 40 minutes to get out of our spot, pulling up and moving back 6 inches at a time. The streets here are far too small for buses, so each one has two operators. One to drive, and the other to get out and help navigate corners.

The next day in quito was a long one. Lots of initial training. I don´t think i´ve ever been so physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted in my life than i was on that day. The combination of being at altitude, getting three shots at once, no sleep, and straining to understand a new language all day long definately took it´s toll. However, I will say that even after only a couple days of training in quito I´ve really improved my Spanish. I tested into the lowest level of intermediate speakers, which was a huge accomplishment for me. It´ll be tough though. Im definately the lowest of the low in my language group of 5. After speaking only spanish for a couple hours for the first time in forever, I felt like my brain would explode. It´s fine though, i´ve never shyed away from a challege before. Plus, im learning a ton. So much in fact that last night while playing pool with a PC friend and a local, I had the confidence to say ¨we are bad¨to describe our abilities after missing several shots in a row. Everyone laughed...turns out what i actually said was ¨we are naughty girls¨. Ahh, the first of many.

Today, I explored the city for the first time. During the day, I took in the sights. The city itself is rather typical. Dirty and cramped. Whats extraordinary is the juxtaposition of that with the giant and beautiful mountains just beyond the city limits. The sprawl is only limited by the steepness of the terrain it runs into. At night, a few of us went to the bar district where all the young american backpackers go. It was a lot of fun, but you can´t really let your guard down. All the current volunteers have stories of getting robbed in that area. Walking around past 8pm is out of the question, too. I felt rediculous, but we took a cab the 5 blocks home from the bar area. However, I did manage to retain some of my machismo. Earlier today, a group of six of us were walking back to the hostel from the mall, which was a full block and a half away. It was just after 8, and the only only other male in our group of six decided to take a cab, which he hailed at the corner and took him the remaining half a block home...no joke. I puffed out my chest, and safely escorted the women the remainind 80 feet all by myself.