¡Las aventuras de Ecuador!: It's been a week!

Today marks the first full week living with my host family in Cuenca. It was overwhelmingly wonderful. I've definitely felt culture shock and the ups and downs of trying to always speak spanish. (For example, I was just interrupted by the door bell, and greeted a woman at the gate where I understood parts of what she was saying but did not know who she was or what to do as my family isn't home...she said she will return in 2 hours so hopefully my family will be here to great her, and at least I didn't completely send her away!)
I have experienced all types of weather; cool and cloudy, thick fog, hot sun, perfect sun and warmth, sprinkling and pouring rain, and freezing weather, not to mention all different altitudes, reaching up to 13,000 feet.

My schedule sometimes feels busy, yet I am loving it and it really is great. My friend Kyla (from NPU) and I meet and leave for school at 7:30am. We walk for a half an hour to the city center and start classes at 8am. We have 2 classes (30min break in between) 8am-12:30. Yes, each class is 2 hours long, everyday! Although my second class only meets Monday-Thursday, praise the Lord!

Courtyard at CEDEI school.

After class we walk home for lunch with the family and usually a short nap or time to do some homework/relax. We then walk back to school for the afternoon activity. This past week, the first day we went on a scavenger hunt around Cuenca. Tuesday and Wednesday we went to a elementary school, which has a great program for children with disabilities, and worked in the garden; taking out all the weeds and planting new flowers. Thursday we had a lecture and Friday we had a dance class! Thursday and Friday were both really fun!

Thursday night, our group along with my host sister and Kyla's host brother went to the city center for a classical and folk music concert. We then went to a bar and played jenga! Friday, the dance class was great. We learned bachata, but thankfully mainly the simple step and turn, not so sensual style. The dance teacher had me dance with him to show the steps we would be doing...and it got really awkward when he started the more typical style of bachata. After the dance class, our group picked up some food and then went over to our professor's apartment for dinner! Later that night our group and some of the host sisters and brothers (including my sister and her boyfriend) all went out to a discotec. Fun fact of the day: US americans get in free to discotecs here because (usually) they consume so much more alcohol. Kinda sad but true...although they didn't make much money off of our group :) So after a long night of dancing, we got home late, to wake up the next day at 7am for our adventure to Cajas national park.

Cajas was awesome. Our whole group camped with most of the Syracuse group as well! It was very tiring, especially being at 13,000 feet, but it was absolutely beautiful and lots of fun. I will post some pictures and a video!

First stop in high altitude at Cajas.