i'm here!! alive and well

so here's the plan, i think to catch you all up on what's been going on, i'm just going to post some of the more interesting parts of my travel journal...

8-23-06 Miami International Airport...

1. ...Then i got to Miami int airport. wow, I hate MIA. it sucks [a lot]. there are No resteraunts, i was starving and i had till 4:30 pm to sit around at the gate doing nothing. How did i pass my 6 hours in the airport? well the first 45 min i just walked around the airport with my carry ons that hurt my neck trying to find the shopping mall part of the airport with the food and books and stuff that, ya know, Every airport has. I discovered that there are no resteraunts or stores at MIA. So i look at my ticket to see what gate i fly out of next and it didn't say. so i walk back to the C terminal that i flew into. Alright, confession, i thought my ticket said gate 29 C. All the signs in the halls pointed to C 3,5,7, and 9. Ok, maybe C29 is a bit further? No. C29 is my seat in the next flight. Yup, way to go me, good reading. So i ask and i'm flying out of gate A which is (as the signs say) a 25 min walk from where i was. finally i get to my gate and i have LOTS of time to pass still. I bought a book, but it completely sucked so i stopped reading it in about 10 min. "In the Shadow of the Ark," don't read it. finally i got really hungry and i found a bar in the airport (actually there are a LOT of bars in MIA) that had a sign for mini-pizzas. great. but what's not so great is that everyone who works at the airport is latino and think that i am also latino. so i order my pizza, IN ENGLISH, and the hispanic woman who's working says it'll be about 10 min and i say that's fine. this is NOT a busy resteraunt/bar, there're maybe 7 other people in there and i'm sitting at the table right in front of the counter so she can just hand me the pizza when it's ready. so 5 min later she starts talking to me in Really fast spanish. she asks if i paid her already i think? so i say, "si, ya he pagado." 25 min later i'm still sitting there, no pizza, hungry as hell. so i go ask the lady if my pizza is ready. She says, "i thought you already had it. that's what i asked you and you said si." WHAT??!! you've gotta be kidding me! i was sitting right in front of you the whole time and somehow you gave me a pizza and i magically ate it? so i finally got the pizza and it was very sub-par.

ok, so then i arrive in quito. blah blah blah. love it. love the family. you'll hear more about them later.