Houston we have a problem!

According to the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), there have been over 121,000 wildlife airplane strikes between 1990 and 2010.

Not sure the total for 2013 yet, but add one for me will ya! LOL
The flight from Houson to Quito was interesting.

Upon take off, no one wants to hear a bang and then the smell of something burning LOL
Our flight attendant comes on the intercom a few minutes later...

"The Caption had high suspitions that we have collided with a bird and we are currently going to land the plane back in Houston and have our team of mechanics inspect the plane"

HAHAHAHA, poor bird. Poor plane.

Mechanics deemed our plane unfit for service, so we boarded a new plane. Only to be told our flight attendants were "timed out" and we had to wait another hour for the new ones to arrive. Fun times fun times.

Glad I had some entertaining people to sit beside on the plane during our wait. (thanks Meeca and Conner, you guys were awesome!)

It is so amazing to share travel stories with like minded people and bullshit on a plane.

Makes a crappy time way way better. 

I would like to give a shout out to "United Airlines" for being the absolute worst airline ever. Not only did you make me angry 3 years ago, but you lost Meeca's luggage. 

Meeca and her boyfriend are volunteering in Peru at the moment and I am SO pumped to be following their blog

http://www.wanderlust-theurgetotravel.blogspot.com/

One last thing about Houston... their Priority Lounge is rock star! I get to use 4 access passes a year, and I was glad I popped in to use this one!

Free wifi, showers, food (which I took FULL advantage of), quiet area, and lots of places to sit.

Arriving in Quito (Ecuador), I dropped my bags off at Casa Aliso, grabbed a map and cruised the city.

 

Found a hooka bar, subway, KFC's, lol and finally stopped at a large park. It was full of beautiful huge trees, play grounds, an enclosed glass library (in the middle of the park!), volley ball court, and a gambling area.

Yes, a gambling area hahaha, pretty sure they were playing cards of some kind.

Hey Nadia! Ecuadorian baby wearing!

The boys that were playing volleyball competed on a concrete floor, used a SOCCER ball, and only had 3 players.

No power house, every "set" was for a tip.

And these guys were awesome!

Serves were made underhand and looked sloppy as hell, but always made it over the net.

What blew my mind what that they ran for the ball and did their best to dive for it too. Never saw a knee scrape, but it came close a few times.

The entire court was packed with viewers, and seemed to get even larger as the game went on. It was quite a show!

The underhand "serve"

Diving for the ball, but not colliding with the pavement!

Such a packed spot, people had to move out of the way so the guy could serve lol

For an evening snack (before I met up with the group), I was approached my an Irishman named Owen.

His first words to me were "Hi, would you like a brownie?"

Stop right there... Ugh what?

What are the first things that come to your mind if someone were to ask you that....?

Ya, me too.

So, I kindly declined the offer, but proceeded to visit with the guy. First english conversation of the afternoon, might as well lol.

Ended up meeting his brother Ian and chatting it up with these brownie selling Irishmen for a 1/2 hour.

(this is all happening in a VERY public place btw, haha)

Eventually, I caved and bought 2 brownies. MMMMmmmmmmmm, gotta love south american chocolate. 

It was soooooo good.

And no, not laced with any sort of drugs. If they were, they haven't kicked in yet LOL.

Met up with our group later on, and immediately it was apparent that we were doing to have a stellar 12 days together.

I am the youngest by 12 years. The oldest being 71 years old!!! And he is a hoot.

It is nice to see couples going full YOLO and travelling the world at their age.

There is 6 of us in the group... and I am the only Canadian. REPRESENT! BOOYAAAAAA

My awesome roomie Tanya is from Washington, and we seem to have very similar interests!

I love connecting with people all over the world <3 <3

This is going to be a fun time.

Up at 430am, and off to the Galapagos tomorrow.

This might be the only blog post for a while. But I will try my best to get it done!

P.S. Our dinner restaurant was at Zazu and it had the most beautiful wine room. 

Hey Jason, my love... -nudge nudge-, my birthday is coming up LOL

Isn't this freaking AMAZING!!!! *drool*