Week One :)

Hola! I'm a week behind on blogs friends. I apologize!

My oh my Ecuador is beautiful! Our first week was jam packed with Spanish lessons (I now kinda get what Enrique Iglesias has been singing about all these years), sightseeing, getting to know our Ecuadorean families, a couple salsa lessons and of course a bit of shopping in markets. Time is flying by!

I am grateful that this program is set up so that we get to live with a an Ecuadorean family. This allows for greater cultural exchange. My Ecuadorean mama (Sandra) is the bomb. She's hell of a cook, and encourages me to speak the little bit of Spanish I'm learning everyday. Whenever she goes out, she encourages us to go with her so that we can experience part of her everyday life in Ecuador. For instance, instead of buying rice, nuts and avocados in the same place, we zigzagged through the streets and bought the individual items from different vendors. That was fun! She also insisted that I go to her daughter's school for a Mother's Day celebration. It was probably the first time I've seen musical chairs played right. They actually danced around the chairs instead of walking around the chairs like we do in Canada.

We've had a couple of salsa lessons already. Pretty sure our instructor thinks we're hopeless. Francisco was a lot of fun, I want to thank him for his patience!

Some of our sightseeing included a visit to the Virgin del Panecillo monument. It was raining but still cool to see. We also visited the archeological museum, also cool. Our visit to Otavalo market was fun! Bartering what much easier than I expected! Bringing home a few different things which I'm excited to share with my friends and family :)

M