Keith's travelogue

Quito, Ecuador

Hola los personas "liddicoat" especialidad mis madre y hermanos and hermanas, buenos dias donde Quito, Ecuador.

Hello to all Liddicoats especially my mother & brothers and sisters, gidday from Quito Ecuador.

Well, after all the hassles I had leavinf San Francisco and getting in to Ecuador, I am glad just to be here, and have settled into the language school relatively well. The tuition is one on one so it is very flexible and tailored to my needs. I feel I have learnt a lot and that I am making a fair fist of communicating in Spanish, although while I can formulate sentences that are not too mangled, translating the answers from other people is still the biggest chaallenge!

I chose a homestay option and the lady of the house (Senora Lorena) has made a rule that only Spanish is used to communicate, part of the "total immersion" theory (aka sink or swim). There are about five students at the campus of the school that I attend and, for some reason, the school is very popular with Swiss people as I have met three so far. There is one Australian student who finished today, and an English guy. We also met up with some stundents that were at the school last week, and have been sampling the Quito nightlife. There are lots of cool bars and cafes where we can practice our Spanish, or be very relieved to understand what people really are saying to us by talking in English.

The school also has activities during the day, so believe it or not on Monday I tried some "bailar salsa" salsa dancing and yesterday saw the movie Wallace and Grommit in Spanish, it was very funny and pitched about the right level for me to understand most of what was going on, although the plot was not to hard to follow without any Spanish language skills.

Today I visited a local market and there were lots of familiar and strange fruit & veges on display. I tried a few of the oddest ones and, so far, my stomach has been fine!

Well that is about it for now, I am planning some sightseeing around Quito this weekend so I will report on those next week.

Hasta luego!