No Hablo Espanol...Lo Siento!

Hi! So, I've already been "made fun of" for attempting my Spanish...I think it's the accent! Anyways, like I said in yesterdays post, we hadn't seen what Quito looked like during the day. WOW...that's the only word I can say! It is absolutely amazing here...I have taken TONS of pictures, but it still doesn't do this place justice. Quito is like 11,000 ft above sea level so we're way up in the Andes Mountains. It's absolutely beautiful! The altitude had definitely affect our breathing! Anyways, we woke up and stood on our balcony for a while just looking at the mountains. We had breakfast here at the hotel...it was very good...they have some great fruit! We had to meet Dr. Bryan in the lobby at 9 am to head toward Colegio Menor (our elementary school) to meet our collaborating teacher. Colegio Menor is in a suburb of Quito called Cumbaya...it's like 10,000 feet above sea level. It's only like 10 minutes away from Quito (that can give you an idea about how mountainous it is here...within 10 minutes the altitude changes that much). The weather is very different in Quito than Cumbaya...Cumbaya is much warmer. It rains more in Quito bc the fog rolls in! Cumbaya is such a quaint little city! The school is amazing!! It's so nice! The school goes from Pre-K to 12th grade. Everyone speaks English, which helps us out a lot! There is no AC here bc the weather and temperature is so temperate. Andrew (the headmaster of our school) is soooooo nice! All the students call him Andrew, and he seems like he has a great relationship with most of his students! Once we arrived, he took us on a tour of the school. I got to meet my collaborating teacher, Caro (short for Carolina), who teaches 2nd grade! Andrew's daughter is in her class...her name is Sofia (her name is easy to pronounce). I had the hardest time pronouncing the students names today...they had a hard time pronouncing my name too! I was in the classroom helping for like an hour and then it was time for lunch. Everyone is soooo nice! All the teachers are so friendly and welcoming. We had to meet Reuben (the human resources guy) at 12:15...he was going to show us several apartments he had found for us. So that's what we did...we went apt. hunting. The first three we saw were pretty nice...they were all in the same building, but we would have to split up 2 to an apt. which we really didn't wanna do! Anyways, once we saw those apts, we went to another apt building (our future home =) ). We were already told that this apartment was HUGE but could only house 3 ppl. Okay, so the HUGE i had pictured wasn't big bc the other apts we had seen were TINY...but WOW...this apartment was MASSIVE! The elevator opens up into our apartment (it's the penthouse apartment!!). You have to have a code to do that though. Anyways, this apartment is bigger than mine and trisha's apartment in kennesaw (if you've ever seen it). It's amazing! Once we figured out transportation arrangements, we decided we wanted it! Melissa and Jackie are gonna share a room (the master) and they'll have their own bathroom. I have my own room with a queen size bed and my own bathroom...my room has a great view. Kathy has her own room and bathroom. The living room is massive! The kitchen is awesome (the other kitchens we looked at were tiny!). This apartment also has it's own washer and dryer! This apartment complex has a jacuzzi, ping-pong table, and a sauna. We're planning on going tomorrow at 9:15 am and signing the papers! After apartment hunting, we went back to Colegio Menor just to get the rest of the ppl (Correna, Jennifer, Jenny, and Wes) set up with thier homestays. The homestays seemed very sweet! Once they got situated, we went back the Hotel Quito and took us a siesta (we were exhausted). We got up about 7:30 and were starving so we headed to dinner. We got a map and restaurant ideas from the front desk and decided to take a little "excursion". We ended up eating at "TACO NAZO" which is a Mexican restaurant. It had a great view of the city (which came and went bc of the fog...literally within a matter of 2 mins the fog rolls in). Anyways, after eating and chatting for a while (the waiter spoke no english so i had to pull out the spanish pocket guide lol), we made the trek back to the hotel. We decided to stop back in the casino since it was our last night...I lost $5 ha...Melissa won some though lol. After the casino, we made our way back to 331 and now i'm blogging. This experience is going to be AMAZING...I can't wait to see what the next 4 months brings! Miss Everyone!! =0)