Travel Blog Posts
February 17th 2012
Last week the K group jetted off to our last program-sponsored trip…THE GALAPAGOS! Where to start, where to start. We went to four different islands, one for a day hike and the others for several days each. I guess the best way to do this would be to break it down by island and summarize a little so as not to bore anyone to death. San Cristobal: We flew into this island and met up with the bio kids, who had been there for 9 days already doing a class and working on projects. The first day we saw sea lions lounging all over the place and then went to the beach. Day two we spent walking to one of the few freshwater ponds on the island chain and then visiting a turtle-breeding center. A lot ... read more
February 2nd 2012
During the month of January, I have had the "privilege" of travelling to and from a couple of different places on the night bus. Okay, the ability to visit places has been a privilege, but the night bus is not my favorite. Given that it can take me an hour or two to fall asleep when I'm in a bed, trying to rest on the bus has never been my strong suit. Ecuadorian night buses have three common elements, as far as I've noticed: The action film. The night bus ride starts with an action film. I kind of hate action movies all the time because they have dreadful dialogue and loud action noises stress me out, but they are even worse after 10pm. On the way to Cuenca, the bus played movies until 2am with ... read more
January 7th 2012
She's back! She being me, of course, and "back" meaning "once again blogging." It's been a month since my last entry, so I figured I should get my act together and throw you all an update. USFQ has finally wrapped up. As a parting gift, my journalism prof gave me a cup of coca leaves that he got on assignment in Peru. He advised me to be careful when returning to the US, however, since "your airport agents don't have a sense of humor." Journalism was probably the only class I was sad to leave, in all honesty, although I enjoyed the company of my fellow Lengua y Literatura gringos. My modern dance final was a success; if I can figure out how to rip videos off of someone else's facebook (any tips?) I can post ... read more
December 6th 2011
This weekend through today was Fiestas de Quito. The bullfights and various events started as early as November 26th, but most stuff happened over the past couple of days. Fiestas de Quito celebrate the Spanish founding of the city on December 6th. Aside from concerts outside my window keeping me up past 3am, it has been great. It's just really exciting to see an entire city celebrating. I know we have 4th of July and occasional celebrations for big anniversaries of cities, but nothing to this extent. I did most of my celebrating on Saturday. We started the day at Parque Carolina, where we looked at hummingbird statues. To get there we had to push through hoardes of people watching a parade that ran from 9am to 2pm. I was convinced someone would punch me after ... read more
November 27th 2011
The holidays in another country can be rough. This is the second time in the last three years that I've done Thanksgiving in a country that doesn't celebrate it. (Just kidding, Canada does but it's in October and I'm 99% sure there weren't any pilgrims there, soooo...) I think the biggest part of the pre-Thanksgiving melancholy that I felt for most of last week had to do with the fact that I feel a little like I'm missing out on the holiday season, something that I didn't feel in Canada. Don't get me wrong: Quito has been decked out for Christmas for at least a month. The problem is that I just can't get in the spirit when it's 75 degrees as I'm eating my mashed potatoes and Turkey. The rest of the gringos here will ... read more
November 18th 2011
I’m not very good at processing events until significantly after they’ve happened. My freshman-year experience in Canada didn’t make sense until last winter. Certain events from my high school days have only clarified in the past year. Thus, my ability to write a thoughtful reflection on reaching the halfway point of my study abroad experience is probably fairly weak; however, I will try. All of the gringos at USFQ who aren’t staying the full year, which is most of them, are leaving in the next month. Part of me wants to go back with them. Sometimes I don’t want three and a half more months of daily catcalls, weather that never changes (excuse me—on occasion it rains), and living with a family. Don’t get me wrong on that last point: I really lucked out with my ... read more
November 10th 2011
Now, a bullet-point summary of the joy that was our trip to the Amazon. As previously mentioned, the K group took two trips over the break. Although the coast trip was hellish, our journey to the Amazon more than made up for it. Hot springs!My first experience with hot springs here happened in Baños, which is kind of named for them. They were filthy, brown and crowded. On the way to the Amazon, however, we stopped at Papallacta, hot springs about an hour and a half outside of Quito. They were lovely, warm and blue. Bonus: it was sunny and I got a tan. AccommodationsWe stayed in a lovely, lovely hostel. We were put in fancy cabañas that held from 2 to 4 people (pictures included). Ours fit four and had a hammock outside. Also, TWO ... read more
November 7th 2011
We had a week off from school at the end of October and start of November, during which the K group set off for some much-anticipated trips. The trips were organized by our program, and we were split into the Liberal Arts group and the Ecology group. It was kind of nice to travel in reduced numbers, although 20 is still a lot of people for sightseeing. What follows is an account of our first trip, which was to the coast. The bus left at 7:30am on October 29th and arrived at our accommodations in the late afternoon. There we met Andres, the rudest and least-interested host I have ever encountered. Andres also happens to be the brother of one of our program directors, which explains a lot of things, namely why we were there. Our ... read more
October 21st 2011
To start this post, I want to say that I have always had a problem with the term "English major." As my journalism professor said today after I told him my path of study, "That's not a major, that's your language." My biggest issue is the fact that I don't usually enjoy literature that is, in the purely geographical terms, English. With the exception of Shakespeare, most British literature that I study for my major makes me want pull my eyes out and never read again. That's somewhat overdramatic, but I did read three Hemingway short stories after completing a chapter from Frankenstein because the words just ran on and on, and without any particular artistic goal. Jane Austen, William Blake, Mary Shelley--I want none of them. I took a class spring quarter where my professor ... read more
October 11th 2011
Machismo is one of those things you learn about over and over. I think most of my friends here have already blogged about it in some form or another. It appears thematically at least twice in every Spanish class I take in the “culture” section of the textbook. It came up over and over during orientations before I left for Ecuador, and rightly so given that 22 of our group of 28 are women. It’s something I thought I would be fine with, since I knew everything about it. I thought I knew, at least. Machismo isn’t something you can verbalize, explain. It means that mothers will let their young sons step on my feet and cut in front of me when I’m waiting in line to buy an empanada at the bus station. It means ... read more
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