And so it begins...

It all began with the most uncomfortably fidgety redeye I´ve yet been on, for both me and the two people I was sitting by. Somehow managing to squeeze enough sleep out of my Seattle-to-Dallas leg to not fall asleep during my two-hour layover, I ended up in Miami four hours before my scheduled takeoff. After about an hour of random snacking and unsatisfying lounging on wobbly airport bench-chairs, I somehow accidentally walked by a group of people with a strangely familiar "AQ" symbol on their shirts...none of them were in the same shirts, and they all seemed vaguely uncomfortable with each other, so I was pretty sure I´d found my group, confirmed when an extremely peppy redhead introduced herself as Kelly, the first of our three staff members. I was in.

I slept extremely well on the Miami-to-Ecuador flight, so I can´t tell you much about that, but customs was definitely more interesting anyways. After an hour in the immigration line, during which Megan constantly repeated how scary looking the officials were, all of whom were wearing sterile surgery masks (presumably to ward off swine flu), and most of whom were wearing strangely eerie blue, sheet-like gowns and hats, and Eddie tryed to convince me that his hand cooler was filled with Cuban Growth Hormone, insurance against him being short for the rest of his life. I still don´t know if I believe him.

Unfortunately, though eleven of our twelve group members made it through customs with no more trouble than understanding the heavy accents of the immigration and customs officials through their masks, Cheryl (Shinyu), our resident Chinese national, was held up before the baggage pickup for lack of a visa or visa waiver stamp. Megan, a Canadian national, and Michi (short for Michelle), a Puerto Rican national, were fine to enter without prior embassy contact, it appeared that Cheryl was going to be sent back to the U.S. before our trip had even begun.

After about an hour and a half of waiting, we found out that the immigration officials were going to keep Cheryl overnight to try and contact someone of some relevant importance to find out something critical to something else. Or something like that. We ended up heading to the hotel without her, with the meagre promise that our leaders would be able to go back to the airport to stay with her, even if for only a short time, and an uncomfortable communal feeling of loss, of not having really met Cheryl before we lost her, as well as well-expressed feelings of sympathy and fear.

This morning we received the delightful news that Cheryl would, in fact be able to join us, after an exhausting amount of extra travel. She would fly back to Miami, obtain a visa waiver stamp from the local Ecuadorian consulate, and fly back to Ecuador, getting in at about 9:30 tonight. I´m sure I´m not the only person who felt extremely relieved at these news - I no longer had to feel guilty about having a good time.

Getting back to me, and my loverly gap year of loverlyness (I love you, Daddy!), most of today was spent with sort of typical group bonding activities and a fair amount of overarching touristyness. After a light breakfast at our fantastic hostel, we took a bus (our own, way cool) up to the top of a hill where a huge greenhouse overlooked most of Quito. From this amazing vantage point, we could see everything from the only active volcano in Ecuador (slightly obscured by fog, but whose last eruption occurred only ten years ago) to the massive statue of the Virgin Mary on top of a mountain which I couldn´t pronounce even if I were taking Spanish (why the heck does everyone talk so fast?).

Crap, okay, I´m running out of time. We have to go back to the hostel. Hmmm, group bonding on a hill, yummy Ecuadorian lunch, neato city tour, and here to the internet cafe. More later, I promise!

Signing out for now, gotta go eat pizza and engage in more group bonding!

Adios,
Egg