Apartment Hunting and the First Night of Classes

Wow. It's incredible to believe that it's already been almost a week since I've arrived here in Ecuador. And, let me tell you... A lot has been going on. I learned how I was sort of spoiled when I came here for study abroad. Everything was organized for me and all I had to do was go where they told me when they told me. It's not quite the same this time. I guess that's life as an adult, though!

First, though, I need to tell you about my bus ride from Quito to Cuenca... At first I was tempted to fly. It would have been about $63 (including taxes) for a 45 minute flight between the two cities. But I wasn't sure if I would have to pay extra for my luggage or not.. And I knew that it would only cost about $10 to take the bus and I wouldn't have to pay any extra for luggage. So, some of you might think I'm stingy, but I consider myself a bargain hunter and I went with the bus. What was the drawback? It's a 9 hour bus ride between the two cities! So when I got up Wednesday morning I had a quick breakfast and then took a taxi to the bus terminal (It's sort of ironic that the cab fare across town was only $2 less than the bus fare partway across the country). I don't regret my decision to take the bus, but I quickly realized some of the drawbacks to my decision. First, when I got dropped off at the station I had to walk about 200 yards with 2 large suitcases and one small duffel bag (all weighing about 100 pounds together). I wouldn't advise anyone to bring that on themselves! And then the bus... It's cheap, but I didn't get out of my seat for the whole 9 hours (10 am till 7 pm). I had some snacks with me, but that was it! No lunch. I don't even know if there was a bathroom (I made sure no to drink too much). But I made it all in one piece and could start my adventures in Cuenca!

Thursday I got up knowing that I had a day to kill before the first teachers meeting, but wasn't willing to sit around doing nothing! I had been email back and forth with a guy from Scotland who is a new teacher here as well. After a couple of emails I knew he was staying on my floor in the hostel and I had a good guess which room it was. After a hearty breakfast of rice and chicken (you can never eat enough rice down here!) I decided that I could keep emailing him, or I could take a leap of faith and knock on the door. I did and it did turn out to be the other teachers room. We hit it off right away and ended up checking out the city together for most of the rest of the day. I had made my first friend in Cuenca!!

Things started to quickly move forward. We meet some of the other new teachers at another hostel a couple of blocks away (and I met a returning teacher just walking around town. This place definitely has the feel of a small town). It was great meeting new people, but we didn't want to waste any time to go apartment hunting. At the new teacher meeting on Friday we met a girl from California named Jenny and our apartment hunting group solidified. It was me, the Scottish guy (Stephen), a young teacher from Seattle (Will), the girl from California who's also taught English in Japan (Jennifer) and tutor from Chicago who looks like he just walked off of the set of a documentary about hippies (Steve). The next couple of days we walked around town looking at different places of all shapes and sizes.

So, how did we find the place that we're currently living in? Complete and utter luck on the first Wednesday we were here! We just didn't know it at the time... That first Wednesday we walked into the school to say hi to the administrators and bumped into an Ecuadorian lady who was on her way out. Her name was Yolanda and she took beginner classes at CEDEI (the school where I teach). We struck up a conversation (in Spanish) and she told us that she had 3 bedrooms free and she liked to house CEDEI teachers. We tromped across town (those first couple of days we walked a ton!) to take a look. We liked it, but stored it away in the back of our heads.

By Saturday we had had very little luck finding a place to live. We had seen a place we liked, but there wasn't space for two weeks and we were getting antsy. Out rooms at the hostel were literally like large closets. Mine was about 7 ft by 6 ft. Enough space for the bed, my luggage and floor space for the door to open. Nothing else. On top of that the refrigerator in the communal kitchen had a nasty habit of eating or food. Stephen had some nice meats disappear. I had eggs, bread and cheese disappear. And, on top of that the warm water in the shower was hit or miss. The more we thought about it the more the first place we looked at started to grow on us. Sunday morning we called Yolanda back. We could look at her place at 2 pm. This time we went with Jen (she hadn't seen it the other time). Two minutes after walking back through the door we had decided. We had a home! It looked like a home, it felt like a home and the rooms were spacious. The one interesting twist is that the landlady lives in one of the other rooms, but we just saw this as a chance to practice our Spanish. We left at 2:30 Sunday and we had moved in by 5 pm. I'm not fully unpacked yet, but we were all happy to have a place to unpack and call home.

I don't want this post to be too long, so I'll talk more about classes and the school in my next post. But, yesterday we had a meeting for all of the teachers (new and returning) and received our class assignments. I'm teaching 3 classes (Monday through Thursday 6 - 7:15 pm and 7:30 - 8:45 pm and Saturday 8:30 am - 12:30 pm). I love my schedule and, so far, love the classes (I just had the first two classes tonight). There will be plenty more about classes and the school to come. Now, though, it's time to call it a night.

Arrived in Quito!!!

I´m here!!! Just a couple of hours ago my plane touched down at the airport in Quito after what can only be described as a long 36 hours..

The chaos started on Monday morning when I started to finalize the things I was going to take with me. After a couple of last minute errands and a final dinner with some friends the night had only begun (it was actually almost 11pm by that point, but my night had hardly begun). What followed has almost become a routine for me before long trips... Long, very long nights of last minute packing and cleaing up my stuff around the house (if you´ve seen our house in DC you knowa that I have a lot of stuff around the house!). But, by Tuesday morning I was finally ready to go and piled my stuff in the car for the drive to the airport.

I´m not sure that I can say that it has entirely hit me yet. I still tried to speak to the immigration officers at the arrivals terminal in English. But, as we drove down the streets to the hostel my Spanish started to kick in... Not soon enough to stop me from probably paying the taxi driver too much (we negotiated the price right at the beginning of the trip), but in enough time to start having a real conversation with the driver (I actually think he felt a little bad about the price he was charging me by the time we arrived at the hotel).

My home for the night is La Casa Bambu, a small hostel with a great view overlooking the city. But tomorrow I head to Cuenca, a city 9 hours south of here by bus (but the trip only costs $8) where I will start the process of finding an apartment and living a normal life.. We´ll, normal in a loose sense of the word that I will define and shape during the days, weeks and months to come.