Friday the whole group went to Lausanne to officially register our student visas. Then five of us decided to spend the night and explore on Saturday (Anna, Moogie, Alicia, Julia, and I). We ate croute (toasted bread with ham and TONS of delicious melty cheese), went to the Olympic Museum (good thing because it closes on the 30th for 2 years for remodeling!) and wandered around the Old Town on Saturday morning while the market was going on. I’m a sucker for Old Towns so I absolutely loved it! The Olympic Museum was really interesting as well – they had all the Olympic torches, a bunch of medals, all sorts of signed equipment, and of course all the historical information. Lausanne is the headquarters of the Olympics Commission so it was a pretty big, impressive museum. ... read more

This is going to be a little bit different than what I’ve done in the past. On my gap year I did a play-by-play of pretty much everything that I did. This time all my writing will be shorter, and hopefully more interesting since I will just be focusing on the main events. I am studying in Switzerland for the spring with SIT, the School for International Training. The program is Multilateral Diplomacy and Social Justice and focuses on diplomacy, economics, political integration (EU), and many other topics that I’m still waiting to find out… <span><span><span><span><span><span>:) We will have speakers every day that are professionals from different organizations so it will not be as cohesive a course as what I’m used to at Puget Sound, but more like a series of lectures and discussions. We have ... read more

Our last wildlife day. Sad! Española Island first in the morning. Masked boobies, sea lions, marine iguanas (red instead of just black), lava lizards (bigger), swallow-tail gulls (the ones that are everywhere here), Galapagos mockingbirds, Galapagos hawks (2 of them, and it's rare to even see one), and albatross. The albatross are pretty big and walk really awkwardly! We saw their big eggs too. On the boat ride to Garner Bay we saw orcas again! 4 of them, 2 babies. One of them completely jumped out of the water multiple times! And then they followed us over to the bay. Orcas are rare in the Galapagos and we saw them twice! At Garner Bay we went snorkeling for the last time. Lots of sea lions on the beach. The big male decided he liked one of ... read more

Our only day without snorkeling... All day on Puerto Ayora with giant tortoises! In the morning we went up to the highlands to a "farm" to see the tortoises. They weren't in captivity, and they could go in and out of the national park, they're just more protected. We saw a couple within the farm and then also some in the national park in the actual wild. They are huge! Just like in the pictures. Massive! Some of the younger ones were smaller, but still big! They can live 150-200 years and they walk 15 km over a couple of months to the beach to lay their eggs, but then they return to the highlands to live. Before lunch we had some time to explore Puerto Ayora. We walked into town away from the tourist strip ... read more

North Seymour Island in the morning: the best bird day of the trip. Our first blue-footed boobies and frigates! We literally got off the dinghies and there were some there waiting for us on the shore! I love their blue feet! And they're pretty cool looking besides that. Plus they're the only bird in the Galapagos that dances. They have a mating dance that consists of raising their feet in high marching steps, flapping withs, whistling (males) and cawing (females). We never saw a complete dance, but we saw enough partial ones to get the idea. Some of them had eggs that they were incubating and a couple of them got up to stretch while we were there so we got to see the eggs! They sit so still on the eggs! The other coolest birds ... read more