Quito and Halloween

So on Monday at 4:30 in the morning I woke up to begin my journey to Quito. I needed to register my visa since it was the 29th day and after 30 days you have to pay a $200 fine! So we took a taxi to the bus station and took another bus to Quito... then we took the trolley to where we had to go. I made sure to have my passport and money in a very safe place because apparently lots of people have been pick pocketed on the trolley. It's extremely squishy, but only 25 cents for a 1/2 ride.

Then we took a taxi to where we thought we had to go, but of course we were sent somewhere else... this is after the first trip to Quito where we went to 2 places, both of which were not the right place. And after finally arriving we had to get photocopies and deposit money in a bank (meaning more time and effort), but finally I got it registered... However, they told me I'd have to come back in 3 days to pick up my passport because the director needed to sign something. Good thing, Neomi (who went with me) asked if we could see the director right away and it turns out the director had studied in Canada and was more than happy to sign it right away... thank you Lord!

After we got to eat some amazing burgers/fries/pop for only $1.50 and we could barely finish them because they were so huge! We also got to talk to the workers for a bit... they were siblings from Cuba and were really nice. Apparently, most people want to leave Cuba because of the political situation there.

On the ride home we (Neomi and I) were dying of thirst, but good thing about Ecuador is that there are always people getting on the bus to sell you something so you will never go thirsty or hungry for very long!

During the week, I got to work with the toddlers and newborns... and it made me really want to have kids! They are so cute. I also had the opportunity to take one of the toddlers to the hospital. Lots of the kids have been getting fevers and they were really young so we took them to emergency. That was fun getting to pretend I had my own kid (and it turns out the kid I took was my favourite girl! haha... she's just so cute and content all the time)

On Saturday night I was going to street church and witnessed only a small taste of Halloween... it's not that big here. However, I got to taste my first Colada Morada, which is this purple fruit drink that's amazing (and very Ecuadorian) and eat fries with a bunch of friends.

Sunday morning I went to church, which ended up lasting 3.5 hours! However, that included a program and concert... there were skits/songs/dances and the band for the concert was from Quito and was really good. Then I got to drink more Colada Morada and eat bread (which is a big part of the diet here... but the bread is so tasty). And that's the week in a nutshell!