T minus 3 days

Now that I've returned home from my three days in Columbus in which I witnessed a thrilling 59:44 of football, found out our 2004 Honda Accord does not do well off-roading in the median of I-71, and said some really not cool goodbyes, I feel like my trip is actually here. It's actually not. But there's a lot I still need to do before I leave early Saturday morning, so it's pretty much down to the wire, and leaving OSU and knowing I won't see these people (read: my girlfriend) for nearly 3 months is making it start to sink in that I'm for real leaving for another country on Saturday.

So, this is how Saturday is supposed to work. I'm scheduled to leave Cleveland for Houston at 8:30 AM Eastern on Saturday. I have a 5-hour layover in Houston, and then I'll take the 3:55 Central Time flight from Houston to Quito, and I should arrive there around 10:10 Eastern time in the evening. I will be met at the airport by my two Resident Directors (two staff members from Ohio State who we have already met and who will be our leaders, directors, counselors, advisers, graders, TA's, and general authority figures) and the Ecuadorian family that will be taking me into their home for the next 2.5-3 months. Some sort of orientation of the city, school, and surroundings will take place Sunday. Class begins Monday, and it will be a wild ride from there.

Quito uses Eastern Standard time year round (correction from what I had written before), so jet lag won't be an issue, and for the 99% of you who live in the eastern United States, my clock will match yours.... until you go to Daylight Savings Time in March. Quito is also, as a rough estimate, 9,351.39 feet above sea level (compare that to 5,281 ft for Denver, 955 ft for Akron and 653 ft for Cleveland), so the elevation change WILL be an issue. Between that, my asthma, and Quito's tiny little smog problem, my lungs are going to want to shrivel and die. Maybe working at Meggitt and breathing in carbon black all summer will have conditioned my respiratory system for this kind of abuse.

For those of you who know her, Lisa Brown (Revere alum, OSU student, Quito program participant, awesome friend) flew down to Quito on Monday and is spending the 5 days before our program truly begins to explore the city and the culture on her own time. That doubles as both an "FYI" and a "please pray she doesn't do anything stupid before some more English-speakers arrive."

Thanks for checking in. I fully expect that the next entry will be posted from within city limits of San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.

From the soon-to-be-gringo,
Andy