Greetings from Ecuador!
Well, I've made it! I've also gotten approximately 6 hours of sleep in the past 3 days, so bear with me.
Right now I'm in my host family's apartment in Quito, about 8 or 10 blocks away from the universities I'll be attending. We're in the north of the city, which is the more industrialized and wealthy part, whereas the south is mainly rural and poorer. The socioeconomic differences are really visible here. It was a strange dynamic, even uncomfortable for me, to be on a tour bus with other American students on the way to a really nice restaurant while we were driving through neighborhoods where people buy their groceries in side streets from baskets. But then again, who am I to say which is a better way of life? I've heard that studies show that people in many poverty-stricken parts of Latin America are twice as happy (in a scientific method of measuring happiness) than U.S. Americans.
Have a tangent! Anyway, we've started our orientation, which today consisted of a really long lecture about things like not drinking the water and, if someone sits next to you on a public bus and you hear a weird sound, like compressed gas escaping, getting up as fast as you can because they're probably trying to drug you. ("But don't worry," they said, "it happens to everyone.") Then we went on a tour of the old, colonial center of Quito, which was absolutely gorgeous. We went to this huge statue of la Virgen Maria, from which you could see a whole panoramic view of the city. I know this sounds silly, but when you can see the whole city, it looks like a miniature model cupped in the hand of this huge ring of mountains. We couldn't even see the lights of Quito from the plane until right before we landed yesterday because it's nestled right in.
I also had my first "Duh" moment this morning when I realized that my shower kept getting hotter this morning because I was turning the C nozzle, which I thought was for Cold but was really for Caliente (hot). Whoops!
Oh man, I have so much more to write about, but I'm completely exhausted, so I'll have to file it in my mental Rolodex. Buenas noches a todos, y nos veremos pronto, no?
Right now I'm in my host family's apartment in Quito, about 8 or 10 blocks away from the universities I'll be attending. We're in the north of the city, which is the more industrialized and wealthy part, whereas the south is mainly rural and poorer. The socioeconomic differences are really visible here. It was a strange dynamic, even uncomfortable for me, to be on a tour bus with other American students on the way to a really nice restaurant while we were driving through neighborhoods where people buy their groceries in side streets from baskets. But then again, who am I to say which is a better way of life? I've heard that studies show that people in many poverty-stricken parts of Latin America are twice as happy (in a scientific method of measuring happiness) than U.S. Americans.
Have a tangent! Anyway, we've started our orientation, which today consisted of a really long lecture about things like not drinking the water and, if someone sits next to you on a public bus and you hear a weird sound, like compressed gas escaping, getting up as fast as you can because they're probably trying to drug you. ("But don't worry," they said, "it happens to everyone.") Then we went on a tour of the old, colonial center of Quito, which was absolutely gorgeous. We went to this huge statue of la Virgen Maria, from which you could see a whole panoramic view of the city. I know this sounds silly, but when you can see the whole city, it looks like a miniature model cupped in the hand of this huge ring of mountains. We couldn't even see the lights of Quito from the plane until right before we landed yesterday because it's nestled right in.
I also had my first "Duh" moment this morning when I realized that my shower kept getting hotter this morning because I was turning the C nozzle, which I thought was for Cold but was really for Caliente (hot). Whoops!
Oh man, I have so much more to write about, but I'm completely exhausted, so I'll have to file it in my mental Rolodex. Buenas noches a todos, y nos veremos pronto, no?