First Day in Ecuador

August 15th was my first full day in Ecuador. I had a few errands to run so my host mom and her kids came with me. First stop was putting minutes on my pay-as-you-go phone. It is super annoying when you cannot call or text anyone just because you have ran out of minutes. However, one trick around this is that you can still receive texts and calls so you can just make everyone call you :)

After purchasing minutes, we went to La Mariscal which is a place with lots of tiendas (stores). It is also a fun place at night because there are tons of bars and clubs. A lot of the international kids hang out there. Foreign people are called gringos. Anywhere else, this is taken as an insult, but here in Ecuador people state things just as a matter of fact, not to be rude. If you look Chinese, even if you are Ecuadorian, they call you Chino and it's like your nickname. Very weird. Anyways, so we went to the Mariscal and I purchased a purse/bag for everyday use when I did not have my school backpack. I also purchased two cute scarfs. I cannot wait to go back there and shop for souvenirs for everyone!

Here is a picture of my host mom with the kids :) 

Here is the view walking towards my house. We are second to last on the left.

Here is the view leaving my house and looking at the Pichincha Mountain in the distance. 

The kids were so incredibly patient during our shopping trip so my host mom bought them lunch. They had salchichas y papas which means hot dogs and fries. Linet sometimes has an issue with eating her food and will start throwing up her food instead of digesting it. This happened today. She threw up a little bit on the table and then just kept eating. The only thing I could do is laugh. More pictures of sweet Linet to come soon :)