School is Hard.....

That is my post, enough said  

Immigration, mathematics and cuchuchos... oh my!

Hello again! Nathan finally showed me how to create my own entries without bugging him for his password. First a cell-phone, now I'm blogging... who knows, maybe next I'll try SKYPE... wait... I've done that to! This trip has been very educational for me so far:) This morning I spent hours with some of the maestros at the colegio and we discussed scheduling and class placement. The educational system is much different, which makes it complicated, but every day I feel like I'm making progress. Today I picked up the passports from immigration and our next step is to register with the census bureau so each student will receive a cédula. (An international student id). Most of the students have uniforms and things seem to be falling into place. The students took a placement exam today to find out what information they needed to review before tackling their courses. Until today, I never knew how awesome Mr. Garrett was. Numerous times throughout the exam there were requests for his presence. Kellie even saved a seat for him just in case he decided to catch a flight. Thanks Mr. Garrett for all you do with these kids! There hasn't been much down time for any of us. It's been exciting, but also tiring. Sierra started school yesterday and she is about a foot taller than everyone in her class. She has been having a blast playing with dogs, cats, monkeys, cuchuchos, rabbits and any other kind of animal she can find. By the way, a cuchucho is some kind of wild animal with a long striped tail (maybe a lemur). It was running around in the woods when we were at the zoo. When it approached Sierra she bent down to pet it and it rolled over for a belly rub. After that, it followed her the entire time. Oh, and Sierra bought a llama the other day... not a big deal! Have a great day!

Kique

oh dinner was so delicious... what? its snack time... im pretty sure we just ate

Dont get me wrong, the food here is impressively delicious, and extremely healthy, we even have real chocolate... but with all good things, there is usually a downside... and that would be that we seriously eat all the time....all the time... all the time. i really dont know how they do it, but if you have an ecuadorian student in your house right now... you seriously need to give them food all the time... like for reals, because they are probably super hungry. so give them food, they will be very happy. the food is a little different but its still good... my body is not sure what to do about all the fresh food, but i love fruit, so its all good. lol. but enough about food,.. i have previously mentioned a little bit about the driving... ah, the driving... ill give ecuador credit because i have not seen a single accident and they are very good at driving... but it is not normal for somoeone from ohio... you see, those lines in the road, the single, double, and dotted lines, they mean absolutely nothing... nothing at all. and people dont get angry either... they just honk their horn and drive on by, no screaming, no flying fingers, no nothing... its all done with style. its not unusual to see cars four wide driving down a two lane highway, in fact if you dont see that, consider it a rarity. in fact, the middle line is a road of its own, but i would try it in the us, you will get arrested and probably wreck... but if you plan on every driving in ecuador.. id suggest entering yourself in a demolition derby for practice, if you get hit... you might want to stick to a taxi. .... enough about driving... quito is an amazing city... especially at night, considering the city has 3 million people...  you can imagine the lights that stretch for miles, sorry, kilometers in each direction through the shadows of the mountais and volcanos.. yeah, the volcanos are pretty amazing here, im not gonna lie... i have gotten to see several of them throughout the country, and each one of them is more beautiful than the next. in fact, all of the mountains here are super magnificant. i have taken so many pictures, and you cant take a bad one, it is not possibly with Gods amazing craftsmanship... but with all of these things i miss home too, my family friends, and everyone... and even the food... today while we were waiting to get our visas approved by the ministry of imigration, the four of us bought pringles, oreos, and candy bars... all legitimate... i didnt realize how much i loved pringles and oreos... but apparently i love them a lot, lol... well, thats all for now... so until next time, goodbye and farewell.... oh, and if you ever come to ecuador, the coffee here is amazing... and i hate coffee

Amazing, amazing, amazing!

Once again I find myself in one of the most beautiful countries I{ve ever visited.  The people here continue to amaze me, which you may have guessed by the title of this blog.  I am staying with Freddys family and Sierra and I have our own 2 bedroom apartment.  As we were moving in our things, I realized that Freddys sister and son moved out of the apartment and in with the grandparents just so we would have a place to stay while we are here!  We have spent an average of over 10 hours a day travelling and the sights have been amazing.  One of the highlights was eating the worms.  For those of you who think, hey, no big deal, I{ve eaten worms before when I was a kid, please watch the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to get a good picture of what these beasts actually look like.  Youll find them in the part of the movie where Willy Wonka is eating with the oompaloompa chief.  Anyway, I{ve gained 5 pounds since I arrived and its time to eat, so I better go.  Nathan, Kellie, Lauren and Hannah are having a blast and are truly enjoying this country and are representing FCA very well.  Nathan looks very sharp, get it, in his nice red sweater vest uniform!  I{ll be back in a week but I must say that I could easily stay here the entire 4 and a half months with the kids.... If only Katie and my other munchkins were here!  Hasta pronto!


Señor Wentz, or Kique as Im known to the natives!

¡Hace frio!

Well I just got done typing out this nice, long blog post and then Daysi's computer decided to shut off...awesome. Haha so now I'm just gonna type a shorter less imformative one :). So far my Ecuador experience has been all that I hoped it would be, I absolutly love it here! The people are insanly nice, I like their culture better than mine lol. One thing though is it is suprising cold here, like freezing actually lol. I have had to wear long sleaves and a sweat shirt everyday, haha. Daysi and I are becoming best of friends and I love it! And same goes for Nathan, Lauren and Hannah...all our families are treating us as part of the family, for real! I look forward to eating here lol the food is delicious, even though we eat like 5 meals a day. Nathan doesn't agree with me about the food though, but that is only because he has been so lucky as to try all the "native" food hehe, what I eat is normal and really really fresh! I have gotten to go a lot of places already like; the ecuator (which is at a place called Mitad del Mundo), a volcano that I forget the name of, a church monument so high up I got light headed, the mountains and downtown Quito. Each place was incredible! So far it has seemed like a vacation and it's been smooth-sailin', but school starts Wednesday and I know that is going to change everything. I'm excited for school though and eager eager eager to learn as much spanish as possible! Tonight all us U.S. kids and Kique are having dinner with the families of the Ecuador kids in Lancaster right now, so I'm excited for that too :). Mk well I'm going to go hang with Daysi. I miss and love all you guys! Adios.

Ecuador cant handle my shoe size

well today i got my uniform for school... its pretty amazing, considering i love sweater vests... but it seems not too many Equadorians are 6 ft tall and have size 47.5 shoes...13 for those of you who still use the US shoe measuring scale... so that was an adventure trying to find one that fit, luckily i brought black pants and shoes because we would have had to scavange the entire country for those, haha... but anyways, i am having an amazing time, and so are kellie, hannah, and lauren, although they dont seem to want to post anything, lol... pretty much Ecuador is amazing and the people are the nicest of anywhere i have ever been. youd think i was an actual member of every family here... you cant beat that. well, thats all i have time for for now... so until next time, goodbye and farewell... oh, and if you are ever in Ecuador, dont be afriad to drink the orange juice... it is quite amazing

1 meal, 2 meals, 3 meals, 4... oh, and dont throw rocks at the crocodile

Ah, another day in ecuador. again you are going to have to forgive me but i cant type very well and still use this spanish keyboard that was sold in canada made from parts manufactured in china... so anyways.. the title of this post says a lot. because you see, since ive been here i have eaten enough food to hold me over until june. dont believe me, well its true. we eat a lot over here. and to explain that statement, two nights ago, or should i say yesterday morning i ate dinner at twelve thirty in the am... ah, the stomach pain, lol. and i have just been informed that we are about to eat dinner. if my memory serves me correct i just ate about 2 hours ago... ayayay... anyways.. so we left quito tuesday afternoon like i said and since then i have seen many amazing things. the mountains are fantastic and until you have seen them you cant quite realize how amazing they are. yesterday we went to the top of some mountain to view a snow tipped volcano, which was pretty cool. today i saw a triple waterfall, oh and i ate some slug like worms... not gonna recommend those to you, they were less than delicious and chewy to say the least. just a few hours ago we swam in some pools of naturally heated water, which felt very good considering it was about 40 degress or less in the mountains. and then we ate which was pretty good actually, but thinking of that makes me realize that i am going to be eating again here soon. well, i have to go eat, so i will talk to you all later.  feel free to pass the blog along, and until until next, goodbye and farewell.... oh and if you are ever in ecuador, visit latacunga, you cant walk 10 steps in that town without finding an ice cream shop... in my 16 years of life i have not seen a third of the number of ice cream shops that i saw in 15 minutes, it was pretty astounding