Hola mi nombre es Emma!

Week 1
6th- 13th September

The spanish language study has begun!! I can now offically say what my name is, where I live, how I feel and how old I am as well as the spanish alphabet! Which is pretty much identical to the english alphabet except it has four extra consenants. Robin on the other hand is happily chatting away to taxi drivers and can understanding what things are in a supermarket (which is very useful).
Over the course of our first week in Quito we have expereinced a lot!
- Bus rides on which you must cling for dear life and limb, to a bar or be thrown against the thronging mass of people to keep you upright.
- Women who take high heels very seriously and who have been spotted wearing stilletos whilst walking up mount pichincha which is a vlocano and stands at 4050meters (she was at 3050 meters up).
- An amazing artists fayre at El Ejido park in La Mariscal where there was a mass of young children and a lovely old woman in the middle of the park guarding her sweet stall with a rifle gun.
- A man juggling machetes at some traffic lights.
-A clothes shop specifically designed for dogs.
- Seeing numerous dogs dressed in pink dresses, tutu's and t-shirts.
- Hilarious shop names such as 'the athletes foot', 'A beer and a fight makes a good british night' and 'horny pan' (pan translated is bread).

and many other hilarious anicdotes! Quito is deffinitoly a city in which you can never guess what's going to happen next. Take a leisurely stroll in the La Carolina park for instance, we were just ambling along enjoying the soft grass when a man dressed like a woman with balloons down his top and by his bottom walked past (for a brief second Robin stood still stunned at possibly seeing the largest breasts ever only to realise that the woman was a man and the breasts balloons.... i fear he may of been somewhat dissapointed).

Although there have been numerous hilarious moments in the first week we have also been busy settling into and finding our way around Quito. After queing on three seperate occasions at the Ministry of toursim we finally managed to get out our tourism visas stamped and our Ecuadorian id cards. We have also been enjoying the local food especially the 'almuerzo del dias' (the lunch of the day) which is a 3 course meal consisting of soup, a rice dish with some form of meat, a often random dessert (Ecuador doesn't do desserts) and a drink of fruit juice all for the grand total of $2 the english equivalent of 1.50. Not bad!

We have also gone up the Teleferiqo to Mount Pichincha and attempted to climb up the rest of the volacno. Lizzi and Robin did well but the altitude was to much for me and spotting a rent a horse place catched a lift up the volcano for half an hour on a much needed four legged friend. When I dismounted both Robin and Lizi were tired and dizzy but I surprisingly felt fine! The view from the top of Mount Pochincha onto Quito is stunning the city is literally surrounded by the Andean mountains. When we look out of our apartment windows we can see three snow capped mountains, cotopaxi which stands at 5898m, cayambe which stands at 5700m and papallacta. On saturdays in El Ejido park there is a beautiful artisania market which sells Ecuadorian pieces of art, alpaca scalves, ponchos, throws, hammocks, bags, purse and jewellery. They are all brightly coloured and most are intricately woven.

On Sunday we experienced our first taste of church Ecuadorian style and it was a shock to the system. We went to IEVI a mega church which has 4 services in the morning each lasting a hour and a quarter with a fifteen minute turn around time. As one congregation leave the other comes barging in. The members must make it in within the 15 min turn around otherwise the doors shut. The church itself is very high tech with their own news channel for notices. The worship was loud and funky and people were jumping up and down and clapping. (I felt incredibly british as I clapt conservatively along to the songs). The congregation for each mass is roughly 500 people and it seems pets are welcome to as the man in front of us brought a very adorable puppy along with him. It was a youth service and was actually very informative, although I couldn't undersatand any spanish as they spoke so fast, I did learn from the slides that Quito's population is made up of 45% 0-25 year olds. A massive amount of young people! When walking around you can not fail to notice the huge amount of babies and children there are here compared to England. The service also included a group of break dancers ....... perhaps this should be included in fun church Simon?   

All in all we are settling in well and enjoying the quirks of Ecuador. Please pray for our health as we have all been hit with dodgy stomach's due to the different food out here. I shall hopefully be uploading some photos on here and facebook soon.

Much love to you all from Ecuador xxx