First Week

Here are a few pictures of the first house that I was at.  I only stayed there for a few days because they lived to far away from the school and I didn't want to take the bus home at night.

We got to see the president of Ecuador during this ceremony where the person who is responsible for protecting him changes. He was right there on that highest ledge.

After the ceremony we went to his beautiful church called La Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús.

These two pictures were of the plaza I took them while standing inside the presidents house.

Here are just a few general pictures of my school (more coming soon).

We made this famous dish during a cooking class on Thursday and I took a picture of the recipe it was actually really good minus the pig :)

The finished product :)

These are a few pictures of the outside of the new building I live in.  Everyone here lives in apartments and I have yet to see a house.

These next pictures were taken on our drive to Quilotoa which is about a 3 hour drive from Quito.  We traveled up this huge mountain where a lot of indigenous people live, it was crazy to see the communities they have up there which are very simplistic we also got to stop of at their Saturday farmers market which was interesting because they don't sell your typical soaps and coffee no they sold live sheep and chickens lots of bread and hand woven sweaters and they even had their very own meet room where slabs of meet were being killed sliced and bought all at the same time.  

Pictures of Quilotoa which used to be a volcano but has now filled with water.

You can pay 10 dollars to ride a donkey up and down the mountain.

Overall my first week has been full of emotions at first I was really sad that I had left all my family and friends to go on this exchange while at the same time going through a major culture shock.  But as the week went on and I started to get more familiar with the city and started to make more friends it started to get much more enjoyable and fun and I can't wait to start my internship on Monday helping little kids which their speech. Thank you so much to all my friends and family who have made this trip possible and to everyone who has given me encouragement along the way I love you guys!!! :)