The First Big Weekend - Saturday

After staying overnight in Madrid, I had no problems with getting on my first flight outside Europe, re: papers needed. I'd booked my seat and went to find it. My fellow passenger was already on and she didn't look Ecuadorian or Spanish. Stéphanie was in fact Swiss and was going to study Spanish in Quito for 2 months and then travel around South America. We got on well and spent the 11 hours (2 fewer than I thought it was!) chatting and playing cards. It was a lot better than I expected and we both felt it wasn't at all bad to be stuck on a plane for so long. We landed a bit late and had to go through the queue of foreigners which took a while. But again,we both had no problems and found our bags. Then we went our separate ways as we were both being picked up by people. We arranged to meet up when I go back to Quito some time, though.
Patricio picked me up and drove me to the hostel. I got an idea that Quito was actually pretty big. It's 35km long and 3km wide, situated between the mountains of the Andes. He was nice and I had no problem at all with speaking Spanish with him. Ecuadorians speak it very clearly so I could see straight away that the language was not going to be a problem.
I wasn't getting any network for my phone though and this was a problem. My mum and R wanted me to send them a message to say I'd arrived safely but I couldn't. Patricio let me send my mum a message but it would have been midnight in England when she received it. The hostel had internet access for free so I emailed R the same news. The time here was only 6pm but I was feeling tired now.

 (Hostel Otavalo Huasi, Calle Wilson)
I had eaten well on the plane and didn't feel I needed to eat dinner but I had time to kill so went for a look around the nearby streets which were quite lively. Lots of bars and restaurants and loads of people around. I didn't know if it was safe here so I only took a few dollars with me and had a look around, making sure I remembered where I was going. It was dark and quite cold. I had my jacket on but I thought it would be good to buy a shirt. Apart from t-shirts, I only had a fleece top otherwise but didn't want to wear that all the time. I decided to try to find an Ecuadorian one that didn't look too traditional.
I also needed to buy a plug adaptor as my European ones didn't fit here so put that on my list of things to buy tomorrow.
I walked around for less than an hour and went back to the hostel. The guy working there was friendly and we chatted about the city a bit. Again, no problems with understanding. Not bad for not speaking Spanish for 9 years.
I didn't want to go to bed too early as I needed to adjust my body clock so tried to read in the room. It was difficult, though and I only managed to stay up till half past nine. Breakfast was at 8 so I set my alarm.