Quito (officially)

So I arrived yesterday afternoon. Got slightly worried because the cab driver couldn´t find the place, but it was alright because it turns out that the streets here are strangely numbered (very confusing). We found it in the end. I´m staying at a house in a residential area (I think). It´s a newly built house, with minimal furnishings at the moment, but it´s ok as it has the basic necessities. I´m getting spanish lessons today, so hopefully they´ll fare better than my previous attempts to learn in Brisbane. I´ll have to get better as people are going to stop speaking english to me in a couple of days :( yes, they´re forcing me to learn...

I´m living with another girl, she´s from Germany and she´s been here for a week. She´s working with street kids or something like that, so she´s not here to hug trees. She´s quite nice, she´s been taking me around today and yesterday, which is good. Plus she speaks spanish. as well as english, which is handy.

Um, Quito itself is ok. It really reminds me of Asia, the less developed part. It´s very "back home", shall I say? There is litter all over the streets, all the houses have metal gates and front doors, which are either locked twice or dead-locked. The houses and apartments all look old (old isn´t the right word for it, I´m just going to stick with "back home". If you don´t understand what I mean, let me know and I´ll try to clarify). Opposite this internet cafe, there´s a house (or apartment complex, I´m not sure) with a big metal gate built into a high cement wall, and all along the wall are bits of broken bottles, a cheaper version of barbed wire I presume.

Quito is about 2000m in altitude, so it´s really cool here (weather-wise). I´m wearing 3 layers of clothing at the moment, and it´s 9.45am. But that´s only because I get cold easily. The house is really warm though, which is good. The city is built all along the mountains (Andes), and people have also developed on the mountains. It looks really interesting. I´ll try and take some photos and post it, but no promises. I´m trying to look inconspicous, and a camera would totally ruin that.

Things here are cheap. They use US currency, but the coinage is Ecuadorian. Internet access is usually $0.60 per hour! Cheap! So the cab I caught to the house I´m staying at yesterday was really expensive, being $10. But that was ok cos it´s pretty far from the airport, and I double checked with the info desk so I didn´t get ripped off. Food is quite cheap too. I have to change my money to $1 notes, cos anything notes above $10 US is difficult to find change for (unless I go to a big supermarket, where they keep lots of change in the registers). Well, it´s good that things are cheap. I´m not complaining!

Love and miss you all!