I have been dreaming about this study abroad trip ever since I found out about the trip and signed up for it.  I was on Facebook on April 3rd when I noticed the following announcement about the trip on the public group,”LatinX in Students Affairs.

I quickly posted that I was interested in attending and then sent it to my friend, Rosa. She responded to the post stating that the trip sounded amazing. Additionally, she posted  that she had other tentative plans but in the case that they fell though, that she would love to attend. On April 13th, I was elated to learn that Rosa had purchased her plane tickets and would be attending.

Before leaving, we were informed by our study abroad professor, who the other participants would be. Therefore, we set up a GROUPME account so we could all keep in touch. Additionally, we also friended each other on Facebook, created a Facebook group page and connected on Linkeln.

Fast forward to June 1st at 1:00 pm when I boarded my first plane from Orlando to Houston. Five of out of six study abroad students were supposed to board a United Airlines 5:30 PM flight to Quito,Ecuador at the Houston airport. I was the first person to get to the airport. Rosa was the second person to arrive. It was my first time at this airport. I found it enormous, hard to navigate and very disappointing. There was no place to get a nice meal and drink. Rosa and I had previously planned to get a meal, dessert and alcoholic drink.

Sadly, we had no choice but to eat at Wendys. I only had a Chocolate Frosty and Rosa had a Jalapeno Fresco Sandwich and coffee from Starbucks. She would also have eaten a sandwich from Starbucks, but to our shock we were were informed that this particular Starbucks location did not have a microwave oven to heat up the sandwiches.

Picture taken by Rosa Hanco rugal99.wordpress.com

Slowly others started to arrive. Lauren was the next one to arrive. She recognized us and quickly introduced herself. Valerie arrived next and did the same. Meanwhile, our Quito flight got delayed due to bad weather. Most of the groups initial flights were also delayed for the same reason. The Quito flight soon started boarding and our group of four participants started to panic. Our fifth participant had just sent us a message on GROUPME stating that her plane had just landed.  Nevertheless, the passengers on her flight were still not getting off the plane and her arrival terminal was very far away from the Quito flight departure terminal. To fast forward, she missed the flight. She took another flight to Bogota, Columbia and from there another flight to Quito and arrived the next morning at 10:00 am without her luggage. The airline promised to send the luggage directly to the Bed/Breakfast location where we were staying. In the meantime, the four  of us arrived in Quito at 2:30 AM in the morning and were picked our group leader, Dr. Raul Leon and driven to the hotel.

Here is a picture of our favorite flight attendant on the Quito Flight.

Picture taken by Rosa Hanco rugal99.wordpress.com