Wow! Where do I begin... I left Hull at 3:30am on January 4th and headed to Logan. Of course on the way there I had butterflies in my stomach, and the reality was quickly settling in. Saying bye to Mom and Dad was easier than I thought it would be, I think it was because I was eager to be on my flight. Overall, the travel to Quito couldn't have been any smoother. I made both flights in Boston and Miami and I actually landed in both places a couple minutes earlier than the arrival time. Shoutout to American Airlines.. you can't ask for anything better than that. While I was boarding my Miami flight Olivia and I found two other girls (Hannah and Olivia) that are in our program. Both of them have been to Quito and Olivia had been to the Galapagos Islands before so that was interesting. There was another girl we ran into that was studying at the Universidad de San Francisco Quito but she was in a different program with BC. They only go to the islands for a week so I won't be seeing her too much. They were all so nice and it was great getting to know them all.

I got through customs in Quito very quickly and Ines (my host mom) picked me up at the gate. I don't think she drives because her brother brought the car around and picked both of us. Ines speaks no English, she can understand bare minimum but her brother could speak English somewhat well. I knew that it would be a possibility going into that my host family would not speak any English but the fact that it was a reality I started to question myself. We got to Ines house and I realized that it's her house but her daughter Penelope and her granddaughters live with her. Penelope and her granddaughters speak English so that was reassuring. At least they would be there to answer questions I may have had and wasn't sure of how to communicate it to Ines.

Ines showed me to my room which is pictured later and I unpacked a bit. At this point it was around 10pm and I was exhausted. I started to cry once I put some things away and again I questioned everything. What am I doing in a country where I can barely speak the language? I haven't met anyone in my program besides Olivia and the girls that were on our flight to Quito. We are all scattered throughout the Cumbaya and Primavera areas, which makes me feel alone. I know once I meet people at the orientation on Sunday it will be better. Realizing how scattered we were I started getting anxious and worrying about the bus system and how I would get to see them if they wanted to go out at all at night. The bus stops running at 9pm so I feel like I wont be seeing too much of the people in my program until we are all together on San Cristobal. I guess we could hang after class for a bit too.

I went to bed pretty early but Ines, Penelope, and her two daughters were all heading to the airport because one of Penelope's daughters is heading back to school in the UK. I headed to bed while they were out, I had a hard time getting to sleep because it is very loud in Quito. It's customary to leave dogs outside 24/7 so they would not stop barking. People are loud outside too and when my host family came home they were pretty loud too. This was all different customs that I wasn't used to.

Ines and Penelope showed me the shower and to have hot water I need to flip a switch in a cabinet. When you go to the bathroom here you put the toilet paper in a trash next to the toilet. The trash gets emptied every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The laundry is outside and they don't use dryers, it's all line dry. I realized quickly how much we take simple things like putting toilet paper in the toilet.

I'm trying to take all these changes in stride and really value Quito. I've also come to the realization that I will be one of those people where the study abroad experience starts at a low and ends on a high note. During pre-departure meetings they told us about all different ways study abroad can affect you. Some people become infatuated with their city as soon as they get there and then culture shock sets in over time. By not experiencing culture shock right away some students experience it half way through the program. For me, I experienced it as soon as I got here. I expected these things but now I'm changing my habits to adapt. I already threw the toilet paper in the toilet and yes...I had to fish it out. I learned my lesson needless to say.