Quito!

Hey everyone!
I arrived in Quito 2 days ago. Its been a very busy two days. Mi mama picked me up from the airport with one of her friends (who i think is her boyfriend). They took me home to a really nice house and we drank melon juice and talked for a really long time all in spanish! She kept saying that my spanish was really good but i'm sure she is just saying that to be nice because im definitely struggling with spanish. I have my own room which is huge and my own bathroom! They house is really pretty with 4 or 5 floors. Each floor is pretty small but really nicely decorated. I also have a sister named maria elena. She is nice too. She works and takes classes all day she isn't home very much. Sunday was our first (and pretty much only) day of orientation. We went to the IES center (which is where I will take most of my classes) and met the other people in my program and listened to lectures all day about health and safety (all in spanish). There are only 10 kids in my program but they are all really nice! We are only allowed to speak spanish it's been a struggle to chat with them but we are surviving. There are 6 other kids in a different program through IES (they are directly enrolling in a university so they arent taking classes with us) but they are going to be going on trips with us. They arrive wed so hopefully they are nice! Yesterday we spent all day registering for classes. I am taking 1 class at a local university called PUCE and the rest of the IES center. PUCE is a really nice university in the center of Quito. Its about a 20 minute bus ride from my house. The public buses are a bit scary but they only cost 25 cents! I have to decide between 2 classes. I went to a really fun ecuadorian ceramics class there last night with a few people from my group and I have a society of ecuador class tomorrow morning. I will have to chose one of them because I don't have room in my schedule for both. No one has classes on Fridays which is pretty exciting because we get 3 day weekends to travel! We have classes starting today and then we continue with 2 more days of orientation on friday and saturday. I dont have class until 2 this afternoon!

I don't have very many pictures yet but here's one of a small part of the city. The city is beautiful! its in the mountains! It is really nice weather during the day everyday (in the 70's) but it gets really cold at night. My house doesnt have heat so I sleep under like 8 blankets every night.