Ecuador: The beginning
Hola mis amigos! I am starting a new adventure in Ecuador. This blog is 75% for me and 25% for you, so I apologize in advance if I ramble too much, use idiomatic expressions and sentence fragments, or if my humor is dry. Read on if you wish…
As always, I was asleep the second the plane left the runway. I awoke a few hours later with some casual drool running down my cheek. I looked out the window and thought I saw some nice Mexican beaches. It turns out that we were only passing over Florida… At the same time, I noticed that everyone on the plane had been served food. One of the many perks of not flying with Spirit or Frontier for once in my life. Unfortunately, I missed the food cart. Not that I was craving airplane food, but I hadn’t eaten anything yet. I landed in Panama.
I took off from Panama. Surprise, eh? This time, I was alone in my aisle. It is possible word had spread that I was a drooler. I managed not to fall asleep this time. The food cart came out. Now I was really impressed because this was only a two hour flight. A sandwich and some chips. The chips reminded me of Bugles except they lacked the ability to become finger claws. Oh, I should probably warn you that most of my photos are from Snapchat. Its what all the cool kids are doing these days.
I declined the offer for a beverage because my water bottle was full. The lady in the aisle behind me ordered a beer. I had turned down a free beer. Once again, I have grown way to accustom to the bargain airlines.
I landed in Quito around 6 PM Ecuadorian time. If you know your geography better than I do, you probably know that this is also U.S. Eastern time. My teacher and host, Mariana was waiting for me. I had always wanted to be picked up at the airport by someone holding a sign with my name on it. Dream come true. She was accompanied by another student, Doug. Doug is a retired gentleman living the dream life and traveling the world solo. But I didn’t find out about that for a few days because I was instantly reprimanded for speaking English. In fact, if Mariana knew I was writing this blog in English right now, I’d be a dead man!
At this point, time had become an illusion. I didn’t want to meet anyone or attempt to speak Spanish. I probably only slept for a good three hours the night before, mostly because I didn’t start packing until 11 PM. A good friend and former advisor of mine knows me too well; He called me around midnight and had something snarky to say about me probably just starting to pack. I was at Walmart shopping for the essentials. He’ll be wrong about me someday.
Once we arrived at Mariana’s casa, she introduced me to the family, we ate, and I went to bed. End of day uno.
