because complaining makes me feel better, so just hang on there for a minute, alright?

as im sitting here in my house on a saturday night watching tv alone because for some unknown reason im not allowed to go out, i figured i would make myself feel better about my life by writing about it.
so here goes nothing:

i miss having freedom.
i miss being treated like im 18, and not like im 10.
i miss being allowed to do what i wanted to do, when i wanted to do it.
i miss not having to worry about making sure i get home before curfew (usully about 7pm).
i miss being able to hang out with friends.
i miss being allowed to do anything really.

the thing about the culture here is that in order to be allowed to do anything you have to ask permission from your parents first. you have to tell them exactly where your going, exactly what youll be doing, exactly who youll be with, exactly how your getting there, exactly when youll be home. and if youre me, curfew is typically about 7pm.. yes, P. M.
and even then, after telling everything, at times (like now) im stilll not allowed to go out.

coming from a culture where i can tell my dad im leaving and that ill be back tomorrow, and he tells me have fun and he loves me, and i drive away, to that ^^, its just a little hard to adjust to.
im 18, id loove to be treated like it.

and here you go, a nice little example of the lack of freedom i have, i was allowed to go a friends house yesterday until the crazy late hour of 10pm (which was actually originally supposed to be 7pm) and because of that, i ‘dont need to go out tonight too.’
soo here i am, saturday night, doing nothing.

and believe it not, and i know, its hard to believe, but i actually didnt come to south america for a year to sit alone in a house and watch tv or write a blog post. crazy i know, but that really wasnt my reasoning for coming here. 

i did however come the whole way to south america to go out, to make friends, to learn the culture, the language, the way of life. and while sitting here watching keeping up with the kardashians in english may not be terrible, its not exactly what i signed up and payed a shit ton of money to do. 

i think that if i am mature enough and independent enough that can get up and move alone halfway across the world to a country where i know no one and dont even know the language, that i should be trusted to go out on a saturday night.
hey, just my opinion.

so yeah, thats it. im done complaining, since it seems thats all i do on here anymore.
time for a movie and some sleep. yaaay south america. what a party..

but really though, its not entirely my fault that i havent blogged in like, a month. i promise.

if i had my macbook back and not this terrible tiny little pathetic excuse for a laptop, i would be blogging, posting pictures and making videos like crazy. but as you can guess, i still dont have my macbook back. actually i have no idea why either. theres been all this talk of my harddrive being shot, so they put a new one in, then it wasnt compatable or something, so now i have no idea what their doing to it. 
my guess is that theyre doing a bunch of bullshit that doesnt even need to be done just to get money out of me, but hey, thats ecuador and my spanish isnt good enough to do anything about it. so for now, i can do nothing except steal my host brothers macbook once in a while to post something. 

ANYWAYS

ive been here for just under 2 months now, and damn time is flying by. 

i wish i could say its been easy for me, but thatd be a bit of a lie.
funny thing is, the whole being away from home, being an exchange student thing in general hasnt been the hard part. no, the hard part for me has been the absolute lack of freedom i have. 

to go from being a completely independent 18 year old with no curfew, my own car and the ability to drive with the freedom to go and do whatever i want whenever i want with whoever i want, to being a completely dependent 18 year old with a 7pm curfew, no car and relying on other people or taxis to go anywhere, with very limited freedom, always having to ask to go anywhere and tell exactly where i will be and with who, never being allowed to sleep anywhere but my own house, never being allowed to leave the town without a host parent or rotary member, and generally just feeling like an overprotected 10 year old, has been a bit a difficult transition for me. 

i dont mean to complain, and i truely am not unhappy here, i lovee my host family, i enjoy going to school, i have amazing friends, the food is good, i love the spanish language, its just, i didnt come here to sit in my house every night. and i didnt come for the school, or to go to the gym, which is all i ever do. i came here to learn the language, to learn the culture, see the country, meet people, make friends, experience life. 
so pleasee tell me how how giving me all these rules and restrictions is beneficial? because it really isnt.

ive definitely settled down into life here now. monday through friday my routine is usually about the same,

5am i wake up, shower get ready for school, eat breakfast. 
6:40am i leave for school.
7am school starts.
i sit there, read my kindle, talk with friends, go to other classes, get yelled at, play with the little kids, draw, sit there doing nothing, cause trouble, play games, and just hang out the entire day.  
2:25pm school ends, host mom picks me up and takes me home.
2:45pm i eat lunch with my host mom, dad and sister.
3:20pm i go to my room, check facebook, change out of my school uniform, chill out.
4pm i walk to get a taxi, then go to kellys house.
5pm we walk to the gym and work out.
7pm we walk or take a taxi home from the gym, i get on facebook or hang out with my host family.
9pm i go to bed. 

thats about a typical day in the life of me. 
weekends my host brother, who is like my best friend here in ecuador, comes home from college, and i hang out every day all day long with him, usually the best best part of my week.

im just getting a little tired of knowing im in an amazing beautiful country with so much to offer, and yet i spend my entire day at school, the gym and in my house. 

its gotten to the point where im thinking about how i could easily just be doing all of this back in america, but better. at least back home i would be getting an actual education, my gym at home is better, and i would actually have the freedom to have friends and have fun. 
i dont want to leave ecuador, and i dont plan on it either, its just hard to live every day knowing how much more fun i could be having on a day to day basis. 
not to mention its getting old always having to turn down invitions to parties and just to hanging out just because im not allowed to do anything. im not even allowed to have a sleepover..  

and also, how am i supposed to learn the language when im not allowed to be out with friends speaking spanish. when instead i spend every day after school at the gym with other exchangers.
youd think rotary would be begging us to be out with friends, speaking spanish, learning the way of life here, integrating into the culture, but instead we dont have permission to do just about anything. 

okay, i feel like that was a pretty sufficient rant. i feel slightly better…
except for the fact that im writing this while im in south america, on a saturday night, sitting alone in bed because im not allowed to go out.. that makes me feel kinda shitty again. yep. 

hm. 

like wait, what?!

now i mean, i definitely did not dream in spanish, but in my dream i was talking to my host mom, and we were speaking in spanish. simple spanish, but spanish none the less!

ive only been here for three weeks, it freaks me out that my brain is so used to spanish already, i cant wait until i actually have a full spanish speaking dream in a few months!

for sure one of the coolest things of learning a new language ^^^

ive officially been in ecuador for just under three weeks, so i guess its safe to say now that i love it here!

im unbelievably behind in my blogging, in part because im lazy and have been doing other things, and in part because i still dont have my macbook back and its just crazy difficult to type on this tiny keyboard, so i just avoid it as much as possible. (thats also why i have made a new vlog yet, i cant until i have my macbook…)

buuuut, i have a couple blogs in mind that i need to write, so im just gonna suck it up and do it.. youre welcome. :)

so where to begin? my life is finally starting to fall into place here, my house now feels like my home and my host family feels just as real as my family back in the states. im getting more used to the weather and the cold, and even the altitude doesnt much affect me anymore.
my spanish gets better with every single day that im here, after just three weeks i can understand a good majority of what most people say, well, as long as they slow it down a tad haha. i can have small conversations and for the most part get my point across, even if its not completely correct. and i truely believe in a few months months ill be able to speak very well, and by the end of the year, fingers crossed, i should be just about fluent.

mm, as for homesickness, honestly it really hasnt hit me. i mean, of course i miss certain things and i miss certain people, but everybody misses things when they dont have them.. thats not homesickness in my mind.
most people look at 11 months away from home as being scary and a terribly long time, and sure, at times it can be, but 11 months goes by in a heartbeat and i dont want to waste a second wishing i was home.. because i will be soon enough, and i will never be able get those lost moments back.
im here to live my life, to become a part of ecuador, to have fun, to meet people and to learn spanish. and thats what im going to do.
i know who i am, i know what makes me happy, i know my boundaries and my morals and this is my year to live.

so yeah. pretty much i feel like im settled, happy, and ready for whatever the next ten months has in store for me. :)

promise m next blogs will be a little more fun ;)

and every day i am reminded of just how lucky and blessed i am.
everything about ecuador makes me feel thankful, the beauty, and the poverty. the good and the bad, it all just opens my eyes to how wonderful and how flawed our world is all at once. i feel so aware in this moment right here.

and with that being said, this past weekend has changed my life.

friday night my councilor came to my house to pick me up and take me to our rotary club presidents house for a get together. when i got there i found out that there was a rotary interact group from washington state here in latacunga. they came for the week to do work at daycares in the area and to donate a water purification center so the kids have clean water to drink.
about fifteen minutes after i got there, one of the other exchange students in latacunga, myles, from canada came too. we spent the night hanging out, eating and speaking english. it was the first time in a week that i could speak english with native speakers, and it was weird, yet really nice. by the end of the night though, i actually wanted to speak spanish again. its amazing how much my spanish has improved in the past week already, and i really enjoy speaking it now.

anyways
the next morning i was up bright and early (like always). around 9, my councilor came to pick me up and we drove about half hour outside the city to an extremely poor daycare for young children. the rotary interact kids, rotary members and their families and myles and i spent the day working, painting, cleaning, and playing with the children. there was one building for the daycare there. it was unbelievably dirty and dusty, the paint on the walls was all covered in writing and peeling off, the toys and furniture had not be cleaned in god knows how long, there were plastic pottys on the ground with pee in them, there is no good water to drink and this is where these precious children play every day, in the filth. it made me sick to think about.

we all started to get to work, starting with painting the inside walls of the building. some of the children were running around and two of the young girls there, ages 7 and 10 (although they looked so much younger) soon became very attached to me.. (i think because i was the only gringa who could somewhat speak spanish to them, but either way. haha)
anyways, they took me outside and up a hill to a playground. i pushed them on the swings, which they absolutely loved and couldnt stop laughing and smiling, then we went over to the monkey bars and they would climb the latter, then i would have to grab onto their legs and carry them across as they moved their hands from one bar to another. as soon as i know it 4 other kids come over and want me to help them too. i spent a good hour carrying kids across the bars until i could literally not pick another one up.

we walked back down to the building, and they kept telling me they were hungry. i found some soup in the little kitchen, well broth with some chicken in it, and some bowls. i got them each a bowl of soup and we sat on the floor as they ate.

then i went back to work, cleaning this time. we had to clean and sanitize every single toy, every puzzle piece, every surface, everything.

at lunch we had a hotdog and a bag of chips. i gave half of mine to my two little girls because i just couldnt sit there eating infront of them when they didnt have anything. i felt terrible.

for the rest of the day i split my time between cleaning and helpng out, and playing and carrying around my little girls. they were absolutely obsessed with my camera, looking at the pictures and taking them, and with my piercings. they just couldnt understand why i had shiny things on my face haha. literally precious children.

by about 4:30 pm we had made a 360degree difference in the daycare building. it was painted inside and out, cleaned, sanitized, organized and suitable for children to play. it was beyond an amazing experience.. not easy in the least, but i can honestly say we made a difference in many lives that day, including our own. to see the poverty, the dirt on the chilldrens clothes and faces, the lack of every we take for granted like food and clean water, i mean, it just made me take a step back and appreciate everything i had.
that day changed my life. those children changed my life.

we drove back to latacunga, i went home, showered and an hour later my councilor picked my up again and we drove to a suburb if you will for a fiesta at someones house with everyone, (all the rotary interact kids, rotary members and families, and us exchange students, me, myles from canada and kelly from belgium.) we ate pizza and danced for literally houuurs. it was hilarious to see how bad the americans are at dancing compared to the ecuadorians. we just cant move our hips that way hahaha.

around midnight we went back and i spent the night at my councilors house. in the morning all us kids got on a bus/van and drove about an hour and a half through the mountains to a volcano, volcan quilotoa. we drove to the top, where there is a huge crater filled with water. absolutely breathtaking view.

you can walk the whole way down to the lake on a very steep and dangerous sand/dirt trail. i got about 1/3 of the way down and decided that was enough, or id never get back up the mountain. imagine climbing a sand trail up a mountian at an altitude of 10,000 feet. yeah, rough, hahaha

but all in all, what a seriously crazy, wonderful, eyeopening weekend.
ive only been in ecuador just over a week, but my life has been changed forever.

yeah.

rmonday morning, day one, i was up bright and early, about 7:30am, and even though i had only had about 6 hours of sleep i felt great.

i got up and went to the kitchen for breakfast, my first ecuadorian meal! i had delicious fresh papaya, bread and hot milk. i can definitely get used to all the fresh fruit here, its way too good.

after that i went to my room to start unpacking all my things. literally the only thing worse than packing, would have to be unpacking.i got my room all unpacked and hung out a little with my host brother, pablo.
hes the only one here that ive met who speaks english, so its always nice when we get to talk.

we had lunch about 2:00 and of course it was delicious too. lunch is the biggest meal in ecuador, and almost always consists of soup to start, then some type of meat, rice and vegetables, and fresh fruit juice. my god its good.
we have a maid here who comes every morning at 8 with her son whos maybe 5 and her 3 month old adorable baby. she cleans, does the laundry and cooks lunch. shes a reallly good cook.
its still hard for me to get used to having a maid, its weird, i dont know.

after lunch i went with pablo (my host brother) to go to my school, which was closed. then to the police to register my visa or something, but the guy who does that wasnt there. we drove all around the city, then picked up 3 of his friends and the 5 of us drove up this steep dirt road up to the top of a small mountain overlooking the city.
it was so beautiful and we watched the sunset up there, but it was freezing cold and windy so we got back in the car and went back down to the city and drove around. we dropped of his friends, then drove around a little more, bought some bread, went to my host dads factory and finally back to the house

i feel like something else happened too, but the days are already blending together. mmmm

tuesday was day two. i got up a little later, maybe around 9 and spent the morning studying spanish and skypeing my real mom

then i went with my host mom into town, to a school that my host sister wants to go to, then to my school. we went and got some of my school uniforms.then went home for lunch.
after lunch my host sister, carolina, and i went downtown to get the rest of my uniform and my shoes for school. we decided to take our new 2 month old puppy, flupe, along. so we started walking towards town but flupe wouldnt walk and we had to carry him so we decided to get a taxi. so there i was, holding a puppy in the back of a taxi who is driving like a real ecuadorian (craazy) and it was such a culture shock haha.
we walked around downtown a bit, trying to communicate since she doesnt speak english and well, i dont speak spanish.
we bought my school blouses and shoes, and fabric to have my skirts made (here all the uniform skirts are made specifically for each person by a tailor, kinda cool)

so as of rmy uniform, i have to wear different things on different days of week, but i have no idea what to wear when. i have 2 different kinds of socks, two different t shirts, shorts, a track suit (pants and jacket), button up shirts, a plaid skirt, a blue sweater, a necktie, ugly ‘dress’ shoes and white sneakers.
so ,bryeah, i better figure out what to wear when by the time school starts. ahah

yeah. after that i hung out at the house for a little, then went with my host brother to drive to a country club outside the city so he could drop someing off, cam eback to the house, went with my mom downtown to get bread and when i finally got back to the house, the president of my rotary club and his wife were there to meet me!
i was really proud of how my spanish i understood, even though i couldnt say much back. even after just three days here my spanish is definitely improving.
after they left, some friends of my host family came over and we sat around the table looking at pictures, until i was so tired and went to bed.

these are the flowers that the president of my rotary club and his wife brought me, sooo beautiful!

today, day three, was much less exciting. i was up at 7am, ate breakfast, then at 8 i had make sure i let the maid in since my host parents had went to quito, and my host siblings were both working.
most of the morning i spent on facebook and studying spanish. i also showered and washed and straightened my hair, which was quite the experience.
in ecuador almost no one one has hot water, including my house. i had showed once before, which was bearable, but this time i had to wash my hair too and i swear i almost got hypothermia. im sure ill get used to the freezing cold water at times goes on, but when its 50degrees F and you take a shower where the water is like 40degrees F, its a bit chilly.
around 1:30 i ate lunch with my host sister carolina, then pablo came home and we sat there while he ate too. we hung out a little, watched tv, then they left again to go back to work and i just spend the afternoon watching tv and relaxing.

around 6,some of my extended host family came over to meet me and bring me a delicious looking cake.
after they left carolina and i walked a few blocks over to the tailor to get my school skirts made.
ivw noticed whenever i walk around its a lot harder for me to breathe. latacunga is like 9,000 feet (3000 meters) above sea level, and my home town is only like 900 feet (300 meters) so im still trying to get used to the altitude here.

the tailor lady couldnt make my skirt today because she didnt have a pattern to copy for my school or something like that, i didnt quite understand.
, so we walked back, and watched some icarly (dubbed in spanish of course) and my host sister went to bed.
like ten minutes pablo camme home with a pizza for us and we sat in the kitchen eating and talking for like an hour. i love spending time with him, im gonna be really sad when he leaves for university next month.

and now im sitting here, watching american pie and writing this.


if youre still reading, you freaking rock.
i promise i wont blog about everything i do every day, i just wanted to be able to look back and read this and remember my first few days.
im so happy here and i seriously couldnt have asked for a better family.
its gonna be a gooood year!

k im done now. :)

i can already tell im going to have a hard time keeping this updated.

buuuuut

IM HERE. IM IN LATACUNGA. IN ECUADOR.
today is day three already, i landed at like 10:30pm sunday night, and have just had no time to blog until now.

and now that i have time, theres just waaaay to much to write about already.

it all started at about 5:30am when i arrived at my little state college airport. checking in went fine, and they didnt even weight my bags (thank god) haha
i hung out with my dad for about ten more minutes, then made my way through security and into the the one terminal (told you it was a tiny airport.)

first flight was short and uneventful, so i wont bother.
after about 50 minutes we landed in detroit, i chilled there for maybe an hour, nothing exciting, then boarded my plane for atlanta.

another uneventful flight, i pretty much slept and read my kindle the whole 2 and a half hours.
i got to atlanta, my flight and gate number wasnt on the board, and i had 5 hours to kill. i walked around a little, got a slice of pizza to eat and asked the info desk where my gate was going to be.

after about a half hour i finally met up with lucas, the other exchanger who i was flying with. we sat and talked, walked around, bought obnoxious amounts of american gum and just hung out until it was finally time to board the flight to quito!
the flight was 5 and a half hours long,but it actually went by pretty quickly. lucas and i talked and took ridiculous pictures on his webcam. i listened to music and watched the movie ‘the lorax’ (which was adorable). and hung out and talked to a really nice flight attendant for some time in the back of the plane. then next thing i knew we were landing in quito!
when we got off the plane, we had a lady who works at the airport ask us about our blazers and the pins, because she collects pins from all over the world for her lanyard. we both gave her a pin and she took our picture, then she took lucas and i to the front of the huge immigration line so we wouldnt have to wait! which was awesome

we got through, got our luggage went through another line and had to put out bags through another xray, then finally we went out to meet our host families!

my host mother, host sister, host brother and my host brothers friend were all there to meet me with big hugs and a beautiful bouquet of red roses! we went out into the cold to the car and drove the hour and a half to my new house in latacunga! we got there about 1 am, and i was so exhausted after traveling for about 18 hours. so i went to bed.

im relly terrible at this blogging thing, i could never be a writer, im horrible at stories.sorry haha
and iml lazy and tired of typing now, so ill post another blog about my first few days here (which have been awesome) later or tomorrow or something.
:)

but im here and im happy, so yeah haha

you would not believe my luck ..

heres a fun little story about how bad my luck really is:

it all started friday night, im sitting in our condo in state college on facebook doing the usual (nothing) when my computer freezes. after about 3 minutes of not being able to do anything i decided to hold down the power button and restart my computer. only when i try to turn it back on, it cannot find my operating system and just flashed a question mark at me. freaking out, i turn i off and try again, still the same. one more time, again. so i run and grab my ipod, and google “macbook flashing questionmark.” turns out im not the first with the problem. i try a couple key combinations but nothing works, so the websites says all i need to then is find my cds that came with the laptop and reload the operating system back on. sigh of relief, no big deal. ill drive home tomorrow, find the cds, reload everything, finish packing for ecuador, drive back to state college, sleep and get on the plane. its all going to be okay.

saturday (today) i wake up, go to breakfast and dive the hour and a half home. i get home, go to my laptop box .. the cds are no where. i look through the entire house, basement to second floor, filing cabinets, boxes, closets, everywhere. they are nowhere to be found. freaking out once again i call apple support. i get the most adorable sounding guy and he walks me through a billion troubleshooting procedures, nothing works. my only hope is to order new cds. but tough luck, i leave for ecuador in the morning, i have no time.

there i am, freaking out, about to leave for ecuador in a few hours, with no computer. (first world problem, i know i know, but computers are important for exchanges students, come on)

just then, my dads korean friends show up to say goodbye and bring me homemade chinese dumplings (my favorite mmmm) and literally saved my day (thanks again tina and ben!)

anyways, so i continue packing, and remember that we have a tiny little like 6 or 7 inch baby laptop that my brother left behind when he went off to college. its terribly small and has to always be plugged in, but hey its a laptop that connects to the internet, righht?

so (semi) happy ending to my terrible horrible day, i have this baby laptop that im taking to ecuador, but im also bringing my macbook. im having the new cds sent to my mom, then shes going to send them to me in ecuador. thank god for moms, right?”

the end. .. that was kind of a bad story, oh well.

BUT ON ANOTHER HAPPIER NOTE: I LEAVE IN 6 AND A HALF HOURS.

kind of freaking out now.

seee yaaaa in ecuador! :D

haahaha so i decided to start a personal channel so i can vlog while im in ecuador!

check it ouuuuuut!