Bienvenidos a Ibarra!!

Friday night we all went out to celebrate our last night together. We went to a fancy pizza place and I had pizza with brie. Another girl got pasta in a pizza crust, it was cool! Then a few of us went dancing and to a late night coffee shop. On the way back another jerk cab driver decided to add $5 to the total because our stop was a little further away than he thought. Dude, we told you where we live (you´re the cab driver, you should know!!). And of course they say either pay or get out in a very sketchy part of town so you have to pay. It sucks. On Saturday Shari and I took taxi lagos to Ibarra. It´s this awesome company that picks you up in a large taxi (with other people in it) and takes you to where you want to go for $8 plus $2 if you have a lot of luggage. It was a much safer option than a bus since we could make sure our stuff was secure. The only downside is that it isn´t very timely. Taxi lagos is definitely on ecua-time. We were supposed to leave at 1pm and ended up leaving at 2:45.

And now here I am in Ibarra. Yay!

Reasons why Ibarra is better than Quito:

• I can walk everywhere! Granted it might be a 45 minute walk to the other side of town, but I can walk anywhere I want to.
• There are a few taxi drivers and I haven´t taken one yet but they seem nice. They don´t honk at me as I walk down the street and say ¨Gringa, need a taxi!?¨
• My host family is nice to me. I have a mom (who pretty much works all the time but she is super nice), a dad (who also works all the time), 2 brothers who study in Quito and come home for the weekends, and a brother who is in high school. They all want to help me learn Spanish and understand that I don´t know a lot.
• We have an empleada who cooks all the food (so it´s very yummy)
• I eat weird things at weird times. Yesterday morning I had corn and cheese for breakfast and cereal with strawberry yogurt for dinner.
• They have an awesome TV with tons of channels. I watched Tarzan yesterday.
• My school is so cute! I have my own classroom and the grounds have a bunch of gardens and a very nice gardner who brings me plantains that grow in the garden.
• My schedule is from 3-8. I teach one class of kids and two mixed classes. And I only teach from Monday-Thursday.
• There is a festival this weekend, one on the 28th and another on October 2nd. Yes, dad, more parties.
• My family is considering getting wireless (yay!)
• The other worldteach volunteer in Ibarra (from the February group) is super cool and from London.
• Everything closes from 11-2 in the afternoon because it is lunch and ciesta time.
• I have a nice shower with hot water and a nice bedroom with tons of closet space.

I´m sure there are more reasons but that is the list for now. The only negatives are that since it´s a smaller city there aren´t really places to take Spanish classes and there isn´t much of a ¨going out¨ scene. Hopefully I can convince someone to teach me Spanish because I need it!

That´s all for now. I shall update more soon!