I´m loving Ecuador soooo much!

i love it here. it´s soooo amazing and gorgeous! i love my family. they are all so kind to me! and they are very helpful too. My spanish is not very good. actually, it´s really bad. But everyone is very helpful and they are helping me to learn. Even my 6 year old cousin Sarai is helping me. So i am learning more and more eveyr day.

my first full day here was packed. we drove to this town an hour away from Quito. We went to this place where there was an amazing view of the mountains. they´re so beautiful! There were llamas there! i pet them. Their fluffy fur wasn´t so fluffy, but it was so exciting and i loved it! Then we went to this place that was a kind of jungly-waterfall place. it was so gorgeous! i loved it there. Then we went to get hot chocolate because it was so cold! That was delicious. and they put cheese in their hot chocolate! Es muy bien! mmmm. We also had this delicious bread stuff with it. its called bescotchi. i dont know if i spelled that right, but it was soooo good.

Yesterday, we went to my aunt Sonia´s house. She has such an amazingly beautiful house! aww, that was fun. we had some delicious food there too. i´m not really sure what any of it was called. but it was good! and they have THE most delicious fruits EVER here! aw, i just love everything here! its all so wonderful and different. and i love the people most of all!

i love it here and i am so excited for this year! my school starts a week from today, and i´m so nervous about that! but i´m excited at the same time. it is an all girls school and goes from 7 am to 1 pm. that will be nice and i am excited to find out what school here is like!

Nervous excitement!!!

I'm leaving in a couple of days you guys! only 2 more days left in Houghton, MI! and 4 days left in the U.S.! My whole family is heading down to Madison, WI [which is where I'm flying out of] on Thursday. I'm flying out of the Madison airport at 9:53 on Friday. Nick [the other kid from my rotary district that is going to Ecuador] is flying with me, the whole way. I'm soooo excited for that, because i don't have to fly by myself EVER, which I was actually kind of scared about. We're flying from Madison to Cincinnati to Atlanta to Quito!

The packing is in progress. We've weighed both of my suitcases and they're both under 50 lbs! Of course, not all of my stuff's in them yet...but I'm sure we'll manage to make them under the weight limit! We're going to Marquette tomorrow to get any last minute things I might need.

I'm getting so excited you guys! The next couple of days are jam-packed full of stuff that I have to do, so time will go so fast. Before I know it, it's going to be Friday and I'll be on my way to Ecuador! I'm excited, but I'm also starting to get kind of nervous. I think my excitement outweighs the nervousness though.

I'm going to miss everyone so much, but this year's going to go by so fast. It's going to be soooo fun too! We'll keep in touch, so don't worry!

If anyone wants to write to me, that doesn't already have my address in Quito, email my mom or me and we'll give you the address! I'd love to hear from you guys!