We made it to Quito last Sunday night after flying all day and are enjoying our stay. (Luckily, we were able to upgrade to first class, thanks to all of John´s frequent flyer miles, which made the trip much more enjoyable.) We go to class from 8:30 – 12:30 (class is one-on-one with an instructor). My instructor is great, but unfortunately, her mother passed away yesterday, so I am without a teacher today (I´ll make up the time next week when Inez returns). John also likes his instructor, Jaime.
Quito is beautiful and surrounded by incredible mountains – it has taken a few days to get used to the high altitude.
We have been spending our afternoons having lunch and doing our homework at a little restaurant nearby, The Magic Bean. The weather´s great, so we sit outside.
We went on a city tour on Wednesday night with a group from the school – it was fun to see other (nicer) parts of town. We went to a beautiful spot high above the city where they have a huge statue of an angel – it was foggy at times and quite beautiful and mysterious. We also visited the old historic part of town with buildings and churches built in the 16th century – it´s a designated historic site with UNESCO.
Last night John went with some of the guys from school to a soccer match – I stayed in the hotel because I wasn´t feeling great (something disagreed with my stomach). He had a great time and said it was a lot of fun.
We have spent some amount of time dealing with hotels. It turns out that our first hotel has a live jazz band most nights, so we escaped to another hotel which is a lot nicer and quieter…although this morning I moved us to another room because of the street noise.
We´ve gotten cat reports from our sitter – evidently Noodle is not being very friendly, which surprises me, but hopefully he will warm up. Flavia, of course, is not to be seen. We miss them!