Am just in an internet cafe in quito at the moment, thought that I would utilise my super fast typing skills to write to you. My phone does not work out here, so haven´t been able to receive any texts, apparently you need like quad band or something, and mine is only tri band, so think I will have to buy a whole new phone, either that or try and get an ecuadorian sim card that will work! Anyway, wil sort that out when I get to Tena, so that I can get a sim card that has the greatest coverage over there. Will text you to let you know the number as soon as I do, and then apparently it is free to receive texts, it just costs 30 p to send them. Phoning from phone cabins though is really cheap hnere, it´s like 30p to talk for a few mins, so I may do that at some point. Gave my mum a quick call earlier to tell her that I had got here ok, it was quite late at home though woops!"

So yes, the flight was great, all really good! I got really nervous before I left, and I was really sad about leaving everyone (mainly you) and I cried and my mum gave me a big hug just like in the old days, I felt like a little kid again! As you could probably have predicted, was still pac,king at about 4am in the morning before we left! Thje journey to houston was really fun, had three w2hole seats to myself in the middle of thius massive plane (i apologise about the crap typing btw, this keyboard is utterly horrendous and half of the keys are in the wrong place) so I did lots of sleeping. Then had a wait at Houston, 2 hours to get through security! I ask you. Hmm lol. The flight over to Quito tthough was such a tiny plane, and i was literally squashed in between all these guys, luckily there was one really nice american guy who i spoke to for the majority of the 5 hours, and we had some quite good food too! YOu would have liked it anyway.

So yes, Quito is crazy as a city! Obviously i hsaven´t really seen much of it, will see more of it when i´m with emilie, but we are staying with this family, i have my own roolm and my own bathroom, and everyone here lives in appartment blocks, and the buildings here ar4e crazy! All higgdiipigglidy and pascked into the hillside. the city is really long and thin, because it is between the mountains on either side, and there are ju7st these massive one way roads everywhere, and the people who drive are just crazy! But yes the family that I am staying with is lovely, I can communicate really well with them because their spanish is really easy to understand due to their accent, and they naturally speak really slowly, which is great! There are also two other i to i volunmteers staying with us, a guy called Sam, and another one called Eric. I met them this morning over breakfast, and then we went to the orientation meeting with all the other i to i volunteers who came to Ecuador this week. We went top the ecuator! Veruy exciting! We got to try balancing eggs, and seeing which way the water went down the plug hole on eoither side of the line, and then tryuing to balance along the line, and seeing how little resistance there was due to the lack of gravity there too! All the vol8unteers are really nice, but sadly they are all going to different projects, and I will not be with or near any of them, unmtil this volunteer comes to live in tena with me, so I will be totally immersed in spaniksh now fort the next two weeks, and the ecuadorian culture! So I will be phoning you lots hehe.

We were told lots of tips about safety and stuff, and had a spanish lesson too where we went over all the basics! Obviously I klnew it all from your book! But was a fun day. We just popped in here now, we will be goinbv for dinner shortly. So far the food has been really good, they give you massive portions! We hadf some unknown and unnamed fruit for breakfast, a kind of cross betw3een a papaya and a pineapple, and then for lunch we had a cheese (if you can call it that, it tasted like plastic, but hey the bread was good) sandwich, and then for dinner I think we are having "carne", that´s to say the usual unnamed meat that you seem to get here! I was told that it´s better not to ask what the meat is, and just get on and eat it! I also had an apple, a nice reassuring fruit from home. So yes all good! And we were given chocolate cake at our orientation meeting, because we had a toast to the success of all our projects here with red wine! I didn´t drink the wine though lol, not a fan of red wine!

Tomorrow, I will be getting the bus to Tena, and then will be startiung at the school on thursday. ´The weather here is realy hot, and nice, and in tena apparently it is hotter (today i had to wear suncream how exciting!) but really humid, so afro hair here i come! I´ve been very lucky, haven´t had altitude sickness here in quito, but some of the other v olunteers had been sick all night due to the altitude! I have my mossie spray all ready for the jungle, one of the guys sam was telling me that when it rained in quito the other day, it literally just chucked it down, and the amazon is supposed to be worse than that! So I will have to be prepared to get very hot, but wet.

At the ecuator line, there was a museum that we went to (an outdoor hands on interactive muse4um where you got to wander round all these little houses like the indigenous ecuadorians live in, and they taught you about all the different indigenous cultures who live there) and guess what?? We learnt about the huorani tribe, you know like we did about in geography with that case sxtudy of the tribes in the ecuatorian rainforest! Mrs blane would have been ve4ry proud, that now i have stood in a reconstruction of one of their houses! We also saw these shrunken heads like some of the tribes do to their enemies, I didn´t like that bit too much! I´ve also beedn told about all these horrible creatures that live in the river in the amazon, so i will not be getting in there! Oh and been told all about travellers diarrhoea as well, luckily am fine so far (can´t find the smiley face kkeys or would enter one here, you´ll just have to imagine. this compùter is very old school,açnd the keys is like a typewriter, you seriously have to bang them to get them to type!)

Anyway, I hoipe that you are well. I cried lots when i read your book on the plane, i think that i was just in a crying mood, but i could only read one page, then blow my nose and pretend that i just had a cold (though not much pretending considering that i still do!) and then read the next page. Thank you so much, it´s beautiful. And thank you mum and dad for my card too, i read that on the plane as well. I´m glad that you liked y book as well. How was the snooker match? HOw is uni? And more to the point, how are you? I miss you lots, wish you were here with me,. but am having a lovely time so far, this place is really crazy, with a kfc on one corner, and then like a shanty town on the next, but it feels realy safe, and we´re told that as long as you don´t go out at night, normaly it´s ok here, though OBVIOUSLY I wouldn´t let myself fall into any false sense of security, and have all my po9ssessions tied to me, or locked in my room back at the appartment.

The lady who owns the house has about 10 children i think but so far only met a few, they´re really adorable, and one guy who´s my age who has almost as beautiful eyelashes as you do joshua! , the boys here are all really girly looking caudse of their dark eyes and eyelashes. No one has blonde hair either so i stand out quite a bit even with my brown hair! Everyone´s really friendly here thouygh, honestly the people are lovely who i have met so far, they have no sense of personal space and just want to know everything about you and never stop talking! A little bit like the spanish in that way! the guys are also really insistent that women never carry anything, so when we went shopping earlier i just had to stand there and got told that it was "prohibited" that women do anyt of the heavy lifting! It was just a shopping bag full of food but there we go....

Anyway, had probably better stop rambling now, was jsut trying to get everyting down as quicklky as I can, because w3e have to go back for dinner now. The internet is very cheap though, like a dollar for two hours or sometghing, so i shall be writing you lots of emails!

Love you LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS