Finally Here!

¡Hola de Quito!

Now that i'm finally settled into my new home in North Quito, I feel as though it's necessary to share some interesting things I learned from yesterday, most of which you probably already know.

1. There is no McDonalds in Portland Int'l. The only good thing about waking up before 9am is the fact that you should always have McDonalds breakfast to look forward to, seeming as how I'm NEVER awake for it! When my mother assured me that there was a McDonalds, I became a little less irritable for the 3:45am drive to the airport. To complete my dismay, McDonalds failed me, and my much anticipated "Last Breakfast" in America turned into a chocolate chip muffin from Starbucks. How anticlimactic.

2. You gotta fight for your right to... rest your damn arms! Get into your row first, whether you have to beat people up to do it or not. If you're not the first one with your arms relaxed on the armrests, you have no hope for a comfortable plane ride. If you're the one with the terrible luck without the armrests, it just turns into an awkward elbow dance the whole flight, and this is not a fun, enjoyable dance. This is a dance where you'll fall flat on your face and look like an idiot for trying to, ever-so-slowly, budge your neighbor's arm off of the armrest. Even more awkward is when they tell you to get off their armrest because "finders keepers." Are we still in 4th grade?

3. Never attempt to drive in Ecuador. But if you suddenly find yourself driving down here, here are some tips: If it's a red light, you run it. Multiple lanes? Drive in the middle. Speed limit 50 km/h? Drive anywhere from 30 - 70. And, of course, never use your turn signals. Also, the stoplights are about one eighth the size of ours; I kept wondering why my Ecuadorian mom kept slowing down in the middle of the roads, only to realize that she was slowing down for the lights that she just passed through without noticing until too late. And Finally, honking your horn means everything: "I'm over here." "Watch out!" "What are you doing?!" "I'm at the front gate." "Go faster." "I'm slowing down." And "I'm making a U-Turn." The best part is, I learned all this from our 15 minute commute from the airport to my house.

4. Oh, almost forgot the best one:
Do whatever it takes to argue your way into the President's Club of your airline during a layover. It's definitely worth the comfortable chairs, abundance of crackers and cheese, and the true feeling that you don't belong, because you don't. Then sit back, relax, and pat yourself on the back for talking your way into an open bar. (Mom, I'll explain later).

Just a few tips from the (un)experienced,

Blair