Ecuador what?!??!

so I had class all week. Calculus is turning into my most consuming class with homework every week and some project thing. haha but all my other classes are just read and discuss. My french class is so much fun and my Chinese thought class is real cool. I am no able to understand basically everything the teachers are saying. Even the Cuban teachers who don't slur all of their words together. So school is cool.

An exciting part of the week was my introduction to Trevor Diaz! I was just doing my thing on a small love seat in the middle of the university and along comes this man who sits next to me. Well we begin to talk in english and he is just an awesome guy. Michael comes up and we are all talking. I have to go to class and I say good bye. 1 1/2 hours later I find trevor and michael and anne and lyndsay all just talking and having a good time. Trevor is now our friend. It is great. I got his phone number and we depart.

Well wednesday night was our night to go to Western, a bar with lots of TVs and we decided to watch the soccer game between Ecuador and Peru. It was tons of fun and Trevor came with his girlfriend Christine! She is a trip and quite amazing. Such a good time with our new friends.

Thursday night I went out to "la Mariscal" which is also known as "gringo landia" becuase this is the place with all the gringos and hostels and bars and huge night life and everything is cheap and it is a party! well I went there thursday night and Friday night to this club called NoBar and it was a lot of fun. Friday night I didn't get home till really really late and it was just incredible amounts of fun.

more to come soon

So i leave for montanita round 10am so that I can be back by 2 to go snorkeling. Woo I am excited about some snorkeling. It was about a 2 hour journey to montanita. Everything on the coast takes a long time. I waited for a taxi to take me to the bus, i then waited for the bus to load up and leave, the bus left 35 minutes after the bus driver said it was going to leave. Funny how things just are slower down here. Well after a lovely bus ride to Montanita I get off as the bus is pulling away and the driver is laughing at the silly sleeping gringo who almost missed his stop. I walk to through this lovely tourist town known as Montanita and observe the plethora of Gringos (foreigners) from around the world. Montanita seems like a fun city but alas, they only have one ATM? what is this nonsense all about? So I go to the ATM and of course, does it work? NO. the gringo behind me tries to get some money out and it doesn't work for him either. Woo i am a bit frustrated but laugh at the irony. God totally brought me to Montanita for a reason, and it wasn't money. I just chilled on the beach for about a half hour and relaxed. I was at peace and had no worries. Thanks God.

So alas no money came from the small town of montanita. But I was okay with that. I waited about an hour for the bus to come back and pick me up and rode back to Puerto Lopez. There was some great scenery on the bus ride thanks to the hands of God.
I returned to the hotel around 2ish and found Anne and Lyndsay laying in hammocks on this amazing platform that had a view of the city and the ocean and was peaceful and superchevre. I told anne and Lyndsay the news... no money... they laughed and we began to count our change. We wanted to eat some dinner and still have enough to take a bus back to Quito that evening. Well we had enough... barely.

That night we walked to the bus station and the lady was about to sell our seats to someone else. We got there just in time. Anne and Lyndsay boarded the bus as I counted our money and ended up giving the lady every dime I had. It was hilarious because I litereally had no more cash and just prayed that we got to Quito. Anne and Lyndsay were on the same boat. Good times!

I ended up sitting next to this awesome german girl on the bus ride. She spoke english very well and was learning spanish in ecuador. we talked and talked and talked for what seemed like forever. We spoke about our families, our schools, our hopes, our fears. It was amazing. She was a strong Christian who was in Ecuador to work at a Travel Agency but her goal really was to get away from Germany and learn about herself. She was really cool and I was quite blessed to be able to talk to her. It really helped the 8 hour bus ride go quickly.

well we got to Quito safely on monday morning round 5am ish and it was good.

Monday

today I went with Lyndsay to the Government office to register our visas. We stood in line and talked and it was good cause we got it done. Very reassuring and I enjoy spending time with Lyndsay. One thing I have learned though about Ecuador is that everything here is so complicated. It takes so long for what should be just basic things. The acquisiton of the visa registration and things with the university and things at the beach. Things just work slower here. Well at least the official things. It was no problem to set up a tour of the island and a snorkeling trip.

well anyways that is something that is frustrating to me. That everything here seems so unofficial and is so time consuming.

well thats all for this entry me thinks. I am working on another one that will bring everyone up to date on my life recently. Much love

SOOOO!!! well i am sitting in this awesome "metro cafe" which is open 24 hours and has free wireless internet. SOOO here is the journal that i have been keeping on my computer. I haven't updated in forever because i have just had trouble using the internet.

so here it is...

WHALES!!!

So I was put in charge/ organized this awesome trip to the beach for the weekend. It was harder than I thought, especially with silly school bogging me down and by bogging me down I mean just simply having to go to class a couple days of week!! Haha, well this trip was in order to see some whales. My host brother told me about a trip his father went on to see the “vallenas” and how it only happened for like 2 months a year. So I wanted to do it and got my other gringo friends to come with me. So in total their were six of us: Colleen, Michael, Bryan, Anne, Lyndsay, and myself. We left on Thursday night at 10:30ish p.m. for the overnight bus ride to the coast from Quito. The bus ride was 9$ for a 10ish hour bus ride and it was not necessarily comfortobable but definitely bearable. The bus ride was only hard because one of us in the group wanted to be awake at all times to watch our stuff… just in case I suppose. So I ended up not really being able to sleep much anyways so that was a bit tough but other than that the trip was fine. It got really hot on the bus and that was weird and they played the movie about the volcano in L.A. with Tommy Lee Jones. It was funny in Spanish. So we got to Manta, a coastal town and somebody from our hotel picked us up. The hotel was “hotel Pacifico” and it was really nice. We went to the beach and Lyndsay and I chilled at this beach reastaurant for a couple of hours while the others wondered/slept. Lyndsay is really easy to talk to and have a good time with. We relate to each other on a lot of things. We went to a beach there in Manta and it was nice but oh so windy flinging sweet sand everywhere. The water was awesome and it was a beautiful day. Praise God for some sweet creation blessings! Friday night I was feeling not so good so I went to bed early while the others had dinner and talked about serious things on the roof of the hotel (awesome I know). I am sad I missed it but it was good to catch up on some sweet sleep and be rested for the next day.

THE NEXT DAY!!!
6:00a.m. rolls around and the girls are pounding on our door. Shoot we are late haha. We are supposed to be at the bus station at 6:30 haha. Right… so we catch some cabs and head to the bus station and it’s still dark. No good. But alas it was a two hour bus ride to Puerto Lopez and we made it to our hotel on time. Our guide, Selvicio, picked us up and rushed us to our boat with the other 10 gringos. We were on our way to Isla de Plata. Isla de Plata is known as the “poor man’s Galapagos” because of the blue footed boobies and the other species that are similar to what is found on the Galapagos. It was an amazing experience to be on the island with my friends and this crazy guide. The blue footed boobies were so cute. I loved them because they always walk together, similar to a cute couple on the street. There were also frigate birds with ginormous red chests. We walked around the island for about 4 hours and ended up on this cliff over looking the ocean. The view was breathtaking and as we looked out into the ocean we saw a humpback whale breaching. The whale jumped at least 10 times and it got out of the water completely. So we were able to see some amazing things but what I really like to do is participate, not watch. Part of this awesome trip for 45 dollars was snorkeling for 30 minutes ish. I had never been snorkeling before and man it was great. At first I kept getting water into my snorkel but after I calmed down a bit I was able to just swim on the surface and see all the way to the bottom, about 25-30 feet. Fish were all around and I also saw a scuba diver. It was a great experience that I hope I get to do again. Sidenote: I was snorkeling and freaked out because I saw this ‘human-like’ creature all the way on the bottom. It was the guy scuba diving but I came to the surface and yelled to my friends, “there’s something down there, look!!” haha and then I realized it was just a scuba diver. It scared me though and my friends just looked at me as if I was stupid. YES! Haha good times.

So we returned to Puerto Lopez and hung out at our sweet hotel. We showered and ate an amazing dinner at this hotel called “hosteria Mandala”. The hotel is run by a German couple who are so helpful and nice. We were able to stay in “cabanas” with mosquito nets on the beds and there was an amazing garden which you had to walk though to get to your cabana. The hotel was so great we decided to just hang out there for the night and played some cards. I woke up early (6:00 ish) with Bryan, Colleen, and Michael to take them to the bus station and make sure they got on there way safely. Lyndsay, Anne, and I decided to take a night bus rather than leave in the morning. Funny thing though… when I got to the hotel I wanted to make sure that they took credit card because I was just going to pay with my credit card and then get cash from everybody. Well they don’t accept credit card and there is no bank or any place in the entire city that accepts credit card. Such a nice hotel and no credit card. I was absolutely baffled. Well the hotel owner suggested I go to a town up the road (two hours) to go to the ATM there. The reason I really wanted an ATM was so that we could go snorkeling again, I only needed about 20 bucks and I really wanted to go. Well I slept in the hammock outside of Lyndsay and Anne’s cabana until they woke up and told them that I was going to Montanita, the small town, to get some money.

Today is Monday.

There is so much to cover, and trying to stay on top of the web log is hard but fun and good for me. I am listening to some Guster… I know, I know. Amazing. Well after class I took a sweet nap so that I could get ready to go out. The international office was throwing a party for international students at a local disco and I went with Michael, Anne, and Lyndsay. It was a lot of fun and the dancing was awesome. We were there for about 3 hours until about 2 and it was just a bunch of fun. The creepy Latin guys constantly hit on the ‘gringas’ and it was funny and I always had to go and bail Anne or Lyndsay out haha. Good times good times. The salsa and just moving to the music was a great way to relax after a hard day of class. So I didn’t have class on Friday, going out on Thurs… no problem. Haha. Well we got a taxi back right and this is when the night got interesting.
Before getting in a taxi you are supposed to negotiate the price, which I did for all of us. It was late you know, like 1ish and so I figured the price would go up a bit ya know. Well I told the driver about the 4 stops and he said… 15 dollars. Right no problem. A bit steep but we were all tired so whatever. We get to the second to last stop and he tells me that he didn’t understand the agreement and didn’t realize how far we were going and the price quickly jumped to 25 dollars. I was like what? No no, we agreed that’s bologna. He wouldn’t budge and I didn’t think to just get out and call another taxi, instead I said whatever just take me home. After dropping Michael off, I was the last person in the taxi and we get to my apartment and he says the ride is going to cost 30 dollars and well I just didn’t have 30 on me so I said all I have is 25. He turns the car off and chuckles to himself… well then he says, “what are we going to do?” all of this in spanish. Well its late and I am by myself and its just a hugely sketchy situation. So I try to bargain with him and tell him how ridiculous 25 USD is you know? And he gets out of the taxi and says “lets go up to your apartment and get the money” well I reply laughingly trying to stay cool, nah nah nah. I will go to my apartment and bring you the money. So by this time I am a lil’ nervous and luckily my apartment has three doors to get in. So I go in, locking all the doors behind me and he is smoking a cigarette waiting for me. I come back and he is back from the gate and wants me to come out and give him the money and I was like “do you think I am dumb”… I mean I guess I did pay him 30 dollars for a 7 dollar cab ride but I figured better money than my life or just problems in general. I was so exhausted by all of this in Spanish and just completely ready to go to bed and he would not come to the gate to get his money. He finally came and I told him “ you win here’s your money” and then I left. It was such a crappy situation. I got his cab number and reported him to the police but I am not sure what all they can do. From now on I have only called a cab which is way safer than just picking one up on the street but my cell phone minutes fly by haha. Whatever, safety first right?

So after all of that I woke up in the afternoon of Friday. Nothing really exciting Friday until the evening, when I went with Anne and Lyndsay to a restaurant in Ichimbia named Cielo de Quito (Skies/Heaven of Qutio). It was by far the nicest restaurant I have been to since… prom haha. It was awesome because of the amazing view. You can see the whole city from the tables located on the 4th floor of this place building. We eat fettuccini Alfredo, enjoying good conversation. I tried to call Michael and invite him but he was sleeping and I wasn’t sure if I should wake him or not… well I didn’t and then he was sad that I didn’t invite him haha. A tough life indeed.
Well I went back to Michael’s place and talked to him for a while after dropping off the girls who were tired after a long week.

Me and Michael talked. It was good. He doesn’t sugar coat anything and I have a tendency to please people… we talked about drinking. So my stance has always been “how does drinking glorify God?” I have always thought that I don’t need to drink a) because it is illegal in the US b) because getting drunk is a sin c) because proverbs talks about the problems that come from alcohol and I have even seen many of these problems. So why drink at all? But then after a year at ECU a lot of people I knew drank “socially” or “in moderation”. Phrases like these are not very liked by Michael. And I will not lie, I have a desire to drink here, socially. I think though that it is a desire to be “experienced”, to be able to say “ya I have drank before and its no biggie”. It is a novel thing in my life, alcohol. I have never really had a problem because I haven’t been in many situations with alcohol. Well here it is definitely a temptation. All of the nightlife centers around alcohol. Well Michael says that he glorifies God by thanking him for the drink. I am not satisfied by this but I am not sure still about drinking. I don’t want to drink simply because of my desires but I also don’t want to not drink because of past beliefs… basically whatever I do I want to make sure it is right and that I have a reason. First of course that it is right. And Paul talks about not doing anything to make my neighbor stumble and also to not do anything if I think it is a sin. Do I think having a beer is a sin? No. Will I drink. No. I am not going to do anything until I am confident it is glorifying God. I am currently in pray about it and would love everybody’s input.

Today is Friday. Looking back it has been an interesting week and I feel as if there is so much to digest so we will see how coherent this goes.

Tuesday we went to the university for more orientation and it was a LONG day. We toured the university and sat through some orientation lectures and then we were broken up into groups for our advisor in order to finally complete our schedules. Well the group we got broken up into was for the students who came alone. Most kids came in a fairly large group with other students and even advisors/teachers from their respective universities. Well a couple students, myself included, came by themselves (I don’t even know if ECU realizes I am studying abroad haha). In this group I met Lyndsay and Anne. Lyndsay studies Spanish and international relations at a small school in Kentucky and Anne goes to G Dubbs in D.C. They are really cool girls who I have ended up spending a lot of time with along with Michael and Colleen from New Mexico and Marlee from Texas A&M. These people have been a lot of fun but the only practicing Christian really is Michael. It’s a challenge but I have been here before and I am excited about what God is about to slap in my face.
My advisor HOOKED me up. It is awesome my schedule :

Tuesday/Thursday: 08:30 calc;1000 latin American Philosophy; 1130 physics; 1300 KAYAKING (woot); 1430 Chinese Thought; 1600 French I

So that’s it. I have a mandatory “help class” for calc on Wednesdays at 1300. It’s a sweet schedule and they seem fairly chill. Calc is going to be hard cause I don’t like math… and the teacher speaks quickly but he saw obvi that I am a Gringo and he offered me some help outside of class. L.A philosophy has two papers of 3-5pg length and then a term paper of 8-12pgs which will be a challenge along with the intense reading but there are no exams. Physics teacher didn’t show up and that looks like a hard class in general. Chinese thought, well the teacher was real late cause they switched classrooms on him but he seems real chill… I don’t know. Mmm Kayaking… yes please. Don’t mind if I do. Kayaking is going to be mostly in the pool for class instruction and then we have 5-7 excursions on weekends where we will go to some rivers and camp and go kayaking for two days. That is really exciting and its whitewater. The only down side is the total cost is going to be about 700 dollars. I don’t know about that haha but man I am so down. There are about 8 people in the class and 5 are gringos who are really into the outdoors so that is exciting.
The last class is French. I am taking this because I need one more class to have 15 credit hours and this was the only interesting one at the time that I wanted. I might drop one class and it will be either French or physics me thinks but who knows. It was an interesting first day of French when I was in class with some 12 year old boys from a local colegio. Man they are smart too, learning their third language at 12, not bad, not bad at all.

Some goodies

Andrew Herrera
pasaje shuara N40 32
entre granador y motilones – 2do piso
ciudadela petrolera
quito – ecuador

i can also receive mail at the university. that address is:
andrew a herrera / East Carolina University
c/o programas internacionales
universidad san francisco de quito
campus cumbayá
po box 17-12-841
quito, ecuador

my phone number...

From the states you’d need the international dialing prefix (011) or whatever your system is, and the country code (593), bringing you to a grand total of 011-593-9-553-6154

I am down with this blog thing, it really gives me something to do and allows me to be slightly more introspective than usual.

Today was a good day. My mother showed me where to wait for the bus two days ago and this morning I jumped on the bus while it was still moving cause... homeboy was not about to stop for one gringo and I was off to Cumbayá where USFQ is. Well the thing is, i caught the right bus... going the wrong way. So I jumped off at the bus station and switched to the right bus. It was a great experience but even better was the view of the Mountain range along the bus route. I arrived at USFQ and met up with Bryan and some new gringos tambie. Marlee is an Aggie with Bryan and we are taking some classes together. Colleen and Micheal are from the University of New Mexico. It was cool to meet some new people and start actually getting into the school thing. The university is beautiful but small (only 4000) students, all commuter students. After the spanish placement exam some people talked to us about health issues (mainly with altitude and drinking water) and other important facts to keep in mind. It was a good orientation but I was ready for lunch when they let us go. I went to a small comedor near the university where I had a full meal for only 1.25 USD. I then spent alot of time on the internet with email and some school stuff in an internet cafe and used the phone a lil. It was a good day.

I met up with Bryan, Colleen and Micheal tonight at this fairly large mall and we ate at a Restaurant called Crepes and Waffles. It was quite good again and the other gringos were glad that I took them there as I was glad when Juan Diego introduced me to the restaurant. We talked for a long time about some cool things.

Bryan is southern Baptist through and through and something came up and he straight up shared some gospel with Colleen. It was amazing the courage that Bryan had and I loved how Colleen really thought about it and handled everything very maturely. It was a 3v1 situation with Colleen being the only "non-Christian"ish... she is spiritual though and had some really valid points. Something that I learned though was a little better way on how to love as Micheal really did not take sides and truly made sure that Colleen did not feel attacked. I am not sure though when I should validate someone's opinions or stand my ground or a little bit of both or what. It was just in general a good conversation and I love how God shows up in the most unexpected places.

Before going to bed I had a truely awesome thing occur. I found wireless internet in one corner of my house. Woot. I also had a long conversation with Juan Diego, my host brother. About my day and about a trip to see whales next weekend. He is really nice and very helpful. Life is so good. I miss me some American football and hot showers but i suppose warm showers will suffice.

What an interesting experience so far. On the plane to Quito from Miami, I sat next to a university student from Texas A&M. Bryan would be studying at Universidad de San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) also. God blessed our conversation as we discussed church life and evangelism in Ecuador. Bryan is going to be a senior and is staying for an entire school year like I am. It was very comforting to talk to him and I got his contact information. He mentioned that an exchange student is only required to stay with a host family for one semester and he is thinking about getting an apartment next semester. That would be cheaper and a lot less hassle me thinks… but I am not sure, an interesting proposition indeed.

So I arrive at the airport and thanks be to God my bags were both there with me. I began to look for my name on a card because I was expecting a driver from my hotel to pick me up and lo and behold I see my host brother, Juan Diego waiting for me with a sign that said “Andrew Bienvenido”. I did not receive an email to confirm my stay with my host family so I was unsure as to whether I would have someone to pick me up. I was quite relieved. Juan Diego is an interesting man. He speaks fluent English and as I am the 7th exchange student, Juan Diego knows what to tell me and how to explain small parts of life to me. Juan Diego invited me to his girlfriend’s country house in Nayón. Nina, his girlfriend, is 20 years old and a student at Yale University in los EEUU. Her mother is from the US and her father is a wealthy business man in Quito. Their country house is amazing and I did not feel as if I had left the US. Nina and her two younger brothers speak perfect English and Spanish. At the country house there were a whole group of young people my age and when I got there they were playing charades and it was hilarious. Only Juan Diego and Nina really were able to speak English but everyone was quite nice. I fell asleep about an hour after I got there (0100) while they continued to play into the night.
The next day I awoke at 1430 and relaxed in the pool with everyone else. All of the Ecuadorians were very nice but not very inviting. Nobody really noticed I was there which was a blessing because I was able to rest a lot. It was a true vacation from the past two hectic weeks. I either sat in a rocking chair by the pool and read, watched Sports Center on Nina’s huge TV with satellite, slept (A LOT), or grubbed on some awesome food. It was quite the set up. I was able to catch up on my American Football and watch a little Ecuadorian TV. Life in Nayón was so relaxing and overall an incredible experience. Last night, 8-25-06, I had dinner with Juan Diego’s family at his grandmother’s house. His grandmother used to work for the American Embassy in Quito and spoke fluent English. She was awesome and it was a great meal with some awesome white rice and fried noodles.

There was a situation with Juan Diego and his mother. First I must say that at the dinner there were quite a few jokes made by the family about Juan Diego’s mother, by Juan Diego included. She was not at the dinner and instead her ex-husband, Juan Diego’s father Gespar, was there. I sense that she is not well liked… So the situation was something like Patti (Juan Diego’s mother) wanted a ride to the bar everyone was going to after dinner but Juan Diego and Nina didn’t want to give her a ride because it was out of the way. Juan Diego was stressed and didn’t seem to handle the situation very well but I think this was due to stress and he was very tired. So I was very confused and we ended up not going with everyone to the bar where Gespar was playing with his band and instead returned to Nayón and slept at Nina’s house.

Today I watched ‘The Incredibles’ with Mikey (nina’s lil bro) and then I returned to Juan Diego’s apartment in Quito. Juan Diego left for Kendo practice and so I took care of some business and bought a prepaid phone card for my cell phone, kindly provided by the last exchange student.

Life is good. I haven’t really done anything spectacular. The altitude here is close to 10,000 feet and I can feel that. I have slept a whole lot lately and am quickly winded… not sure if it’s the altitude or me though that causes the shortness of breath haha. Life is comfortable, I took a hot shower and have had good food. Some parts are similar to Honduras and the poverty I am so used to. My apartment is nice though. The city reminds me of Latin America though, the cars zooming about, the many people loitering on the streets, the smell of exhaust and garbage. I am ready to meet people with interests such as mine, other exchange students and people who love God. Orientation for international students is on Monday and classes start Wednesday. I am excited.

Saludos a todos
Andrés

My first blog entry.

I am sitting in the Miami airport with a couple minutes to spare. It has been a crazy day and just now am I feeling the excitement and nervousness that comes with traveling to a foreign country for ten months. It is truly unbelievable the blessings that I have been blessed with in that I am able to experience this new land and to see God show up in Quito. I am excited.

It has been a crazy last week in the US. I have been spending so much time with people that I have had very little time to be by myself, which I guess is normal. It has been really awesome to see everyone and talk to most everyone before I left but it was very taxing.

I think one thing that I am really excited about is a less hectic lifestyle in Quito. I love all of my friends and family and I am going to miss them very much. I am definitely going to miss seeing and spending some amazing time with Katie. It’s weird to me the strong feelings that she evokes. Well I am going to miss Adam with his amazing wisdom and Mandy with her encouragement that never fails. I am going to miss seeing my brother’s football games I am going to miss so many things. But these things are going to replaced by a whole new world, a whole new bunch of people who I can love and be loved by. I don’t really know what to expect in Ecuador. Matthew Wilson gave me some insight into an intense time of travel such as this. He recommended setting specific goals and really working towards them. I desire to know God more through study of His word and intense times of prayer. I desire to be successful in my studies and in the internship. I desire to travel extensively and thoroughly through South America. I want to understand an awesome perspective that is not my own. I am about to get on this plane… bout to cause some trouble in Quito :-D

Hahaha so I’m on the plane and plug some earphones into the high quality headphone jack in the armrest for some high quality music and guess who I stumble across? Some awesome GUSTER. Yeeeahh! I’m excited. It’s from their new album, track titled “one man wrecking machine”.