Hola from Quito

Hey everyone.
We all got to the hotel in Toronto alright and left Monday morning at 7 for the airport. We arrived in in Quito last night at around midnight after standing in lines all day!!! We are staying in a beautiful little hostel in what is affectionately called "Gringolandia." It is the part of Quito where most of the foreigners live. We are really well taken care of. The juice here is amazing, i have tried Tomates del arbol and blackberry so far. I´ve got to be careful though cause I´m not sure where the water they use comes from.
We are going to Lluman tomorrow for our orientation camp with the two other groups and were pretty excited.
Coming back to the group was pretty good. I felt like I was coming back into my own skin. We are in a pretty overwhelming environment though. In the old part of Quito today there were street vendors everywhere. People were also selling everything from candy to shoeshines to umbrellas to lottery tickets. There were a lot of police around keeping an eye on everything. We were all standing in a group at one point and a kid who was probably 10 years old started to walk up to us. The police officer who was watching blew her whistle because I guess she thought he was a pick pocket.
The city is pretty beautiful. It is packed tightly up and down the hills and has some of the steepest streets I´ve ever seen. I´m looking foreward to being in our host community where it is not so busy. I feel like a great big tourist here. Not having a connection with the people other than those supervisors connected with the program. I´ll keep you all updated as often as I can.
Love love love,
Anna