The adventure has begun! Well, surprisingly, getting up at 3:45a on our departure date was the hardest part of the journey here. We had flight connections in Chicago & Miami with only 45min in between and I just knew we would end up missing one or both of them – it was so nice to be wrong. Of course, no international trip is truly without hiccups, right? Well, when we arrived at the hotel they had apparently canceled our reservation! And this week of course is a busy week for hotels because of some kind of major holiday complete with parades and all sorts of celebrations. Not sure when it starts but it apparently runs for the next week. Well, unlike in Europe (when this happened to us in France they nearly tripled the cost and we got less of a room) the friendly Ecuadorian hostess reinstated our reservation and upgraded us to a full suite (complete with kitchen, flat screen tv’s in both rooms, etc)! I’m liking this place already. A late dinner and hot shower later, we finally crashed at 2a – long day.

Our first full day here we slept until noon. It’s always embarrassing when the cleaning staff is knocking on your door or calling you and asking in polite terms if you are going to get your lazy self out of the room at some point so that they can do their job. Since we like fresh towels we got up and made our way downstairs to eat. Funny thing about this hotel is that the prices on the menu seem to be more like approximations. I’m pretty sure Sam’s steak was $11.50 on the menu but it was $13.50 on the bill. Same thing happened at lunch – my $4.50 soup and $5.50 tacos were really $5.00 and $6.00 – I wonder if that’s the way it is everywhere – maybe we just need to avoid the ‘expensive’ hotels (expensive? c’mon it was $13.50 for a huge steak! Everything is relative.) While we were eating we met this guy named Rod who is a translator – he was doing a job for a conference here at the hotel. He goes on to tell us that he has been a translator for Presidents Carter and Bush (the first one), along with a bunch of other high profile people and events. The interesting part is that he is the official translator for the ATP! Maybe Howard Murray is the only reader who will recognize that ATP is the Association of Tennis Professionals. Since I love tennis, this fascinated me – I offered to be his assistant or baggage boy or whatever the next time he does work for them – unfortunately he just laughed. He was very helpful, though, and gave us lots of tips about Ecuador.

So far, we are finding everyone very willing to help out and give us information – even offering to meet up with us and show us around during our trip! A woman sitting next to us on the plane visits family here every year and was a wealth of info. She insisted that we call her when we come to a city named Ambato so that she can help us find a place to stay and show us around. Likewise, the Rod guy (mentioned above) offered to meet up with us later in the week to chat more and help us out. But first we need to meet with our brothers! So tomorrow we have plans to meet up with Josue and Jania Fontanez, a couple from Redmond, WA who just made the permanent move here in December. We’re looking forward to meeting their congregation and going out in service with them.

Quito is up in the mountains at an elevation of 9,350 feet. We had been warned that this can make you feel sick until you get acclimated. Sam has been feeling funny since we arrived last night –I thought I was immune until we went walking around a little this afternoon – now I feel a little woozy, too. Don’t worry, mom, we’ll probably live.

Not too much else to report other than that we are now completely aware of our Spanish-deficient vocabulary (as if we weren’t before). Walking around a mall today and shopping for food and a phone card was a laughable experience (more for them than us I’m sure). Apparently you need more than a couple hours of Spanish CD’s to get along. Anyway, we love you all and hope you enjoy our ramblings. We’ll post again soon after some actually notable things happen to us.