Life in Quito

I guess I´ve gotten a little behind in updating this... sorry.

Its hard to believe I{ve been here a month already! The time´s going scarily fast. But I´m enjoying it, and I think I´m learning a lot. I came to the realization last night as I was talking to my cab driver about Ecuadorian politics that I was finally informed enough about what´s going on here right now to be able to carry on an intelligent conversation about it, and that I was finally getting to where I wasn´t always focusing so much on trying to get a grammatically correct sentence out that I was starting to be able to improve my terrible American accent some. And that I'm finally getting

Classes are good - very interesting, but definitely not jokes - i have quite a bit of work. I have a good mix of classes w/ all Americans, so I don't always feel like the dumb American, and classes with all Ecuadorians. Its not as easy to make Ecuadorian friends as one would hope, but I at least have quite a few acquaintances from classes and stuff, and have become good friends with lots of Americans.

I finally got my Censo card (my Ecuadorian ID) last week, so am officially allowed to be here now - it was nice to finally have all the paperwork done. This weekend, I{m going hiking and camping in the mountains with my andinismo class. Next weekend, we have a group excursion to the rainforest! And the next weekend is a 5 day weekend for Carnaval, and the whole city clears out and goes to the beach - so we´re going to the beach! It´s pretty amazing that you can do all three in one place!!

Off to dinner now... more later.