I´m back, baby!

So, I am reinstating this long-dormant blog in order to share recent adventures in my travel! I have been very fortunate in the last year to be able to travel to 3 countries I had not yet been to. As any current readers know, I spent about 6 months in New Zealand, returning the last day of July last year. That counts as number one. My second chance was actually another study abroad, albeit a short one. During spring break of this year, I got to travel to the Island nation of Bermuda, about a thousand kilometres off the coast of North Carolina. The trip was for a Research field course at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, and it was incredible. Granted, each day was spent working from approximately 7am to 10pm, but half of that work was in mangrove ponds, coral reefs, tidal pools and sandy beaches. While that was a very interesting trip, that is a story for another day.
The third country I have been fortunate to visit since July 2009 is Ecuador. I was drawn to it by my wonderful girlfriend Irene, whom I met this past year at University. She was an Ecuadorian exchange student, and we almost immediately hit it off. I decided I would spend the last two weeks of summer visiting here in her home city of Quito- but as my time to leave drew more and more imminent, I changed my flight to stay an extra three weeks. With a total of five weeks in this exotic and exciting country, with almost no knowledge of the Spanish language, I reconnected again with what made me fall so deeply in love with travelling over a year ago. Here is the story of that journey, a little at a time.

Day 1- Touchdown.
As with seemingly every flight to South America, I first had to travel through Miami International airport. For those of you who have never been to Miami, it feels as though you got some sort of special customer ticket rate where they transport South America directly to your airport, to eliminate all of that hassle and worry of actually travelling there. For the first time in my country, I was hearing announcements in Spanish before English. I was hearing people ordering their food in a mix of the languages, resulting in my utter confusion. I had been learning Spanish for approximately 4 weeks, using Rosetta Stone to teach myself, and I highly recommend it- but I was not prepared to actually understand the language. Luckily, I knew I was going to get some practice in the coming weeks.
After ordering some food and wandering to see the sights (such as the smoker´s room, always a favourite attraction of mine), I headed to my gate. I was met with the always enthusiastically received flight delay. As I walked to the from kiosk to ask when our new departure time was, I was met by a short, dark haired woman whom I had never seen before.
¨Nowicki?¨ she said timidly.
¨Uh, yeah,¨ I managed to spurt out, totally bewildered. Who was this woman? Was she someone I had met before? Was she a friend of my family´s who had seen pictures of me? Could she be someone my girlfriend´s family had hired to make sure I did not get lost between the assuredly utterly perilous route between my plane and the check in at Quito? My mind raced.
¨I am Irene´s aunt,¨she explained. ¨She told us that we would be on the same flight.¨ This explains it, I thought. ¨My daughter is over there. Come sit with us, ¨ she continued. Grateful to have some Spanish speakers to aid me in case Ecuadorian customs tackled me for no apparent reason, I happily obliged. As we talked, I began to learn more about Ecuador in general, and Quito specifically. The beauty, the trouble, the new airport (which apparently is a logistical disaster) and everything in between was discussed. As we boarded our flight, I sneakily took the seat of a young gentleman with a large straw hat, and we continued talking. It didn´t take long until the long day began to have it´s effect on me, however, and I soon feel asleep.
A few hours later, I was awoken by the stewardess, who let me know that we were about to land. A few customs forms and some broken Spanish phrases later, I was in a car and heading for my girlfriend´s house, grateful to see her again. Being so late (well after midnight), I immediately got into the house after a short drive on completely abandoned roads, and crashed. I had a big week ahead of me, after all.