Happy 21st Birthday Jacob Long!

Here is your birthday gift Jacob. Now I suppose it could be a counterfeit toy OR it could be a rare collectible! I mean, it is Spiderman wearing a soccer uniform after all. You might not even want to take it out of the box! You can look forward to this when I get back, and until then think of all the places around your dorm room where you can display it for everyone to see. Nothing says "I'm a mature 21-year old" like a Spiderman figurine kept in its original box!

I'm heading out on a 2-day field trip today, and then I WAS GOING to tour a jungle over the weekend BUTI got assigned a bunch ofwork so instead I´m hanging back. I'm sure it won't be nearly as fun as your weekend Jacob. Just drink responsibly!

Surprises

So this week was chock full of unexpected occurrences.
On Monday, I received my student visa in the mail even though FedEx was supposedly going to send it back to the US, many thanks goes to Karen DeYoung for that.
On Wednesday, tons of packages arrived for people, and I was pleasantly surprised to be one of those people, receiving a box full of cookies! Many thanks goes to Laurie Foster for that (P.S. I particularly enjoyed the Laura bars; snack bars are more expensive here than in the US).

Got done with a lot of work this week, so this weekend is pretty chill. It actually turns out that there won't be much traveling this weekend, that should be next weekend. I actually did go to visit the site of my public health internship yesterday, the Alternative Andean Hospital in Riobamba, 3.75 hours south of Quito. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing just yet, but it sounds like I might be going to nearby schools and institutions to teach people about nutrition and physical activity (I imagine it will feel very familiar). In the meantime, I might also be living in a small town in the countryside, which would be a super new experience. I wish I could have taken pictures but I travelled alone for the first time, and I wanted to play it safe. Unfortunately, my hatred of waiting for buses got the best of me on the return trip, and I actually walked home in the dark from the bus station (took about 10 minutes). I basically tried to look as thug, angry, and crazy as possible, which was easy because I was basically cursing myself the whole way home for doing something so completely stupid. Nothing happened but I'm just chalking that up to luck-never doing that again.

Anyway, I'm gonna upload some overdue photos and videos.

Now taking appointments and drop-ins

I had a lovely but short conversation with a couple friends in the US today that made me realize how much I would love to talk to you guys in real-time, and the best/cheapest way to go about that is skype. I am now able to use my host family's internet, although sparingly, so I put my information up to the left, and you can add me to your contacts. I'm on almost every morning 8-9 and around lunchtime because I get to school early and we get 1 to 1.5 hours for lunch. Other than that I might be on at home sometimes, but I can definitely be on if you guys want to make a time to talk.

In other news, I got my first paper to write this weekend, so there won't be much traveling :( Next weekend though there will be ALOT, so stay tuned!

Travels

So I already posted some pictures and videos, wish I could give some captions to them, but they look more organized as they are now. I went to the center of Quito again on Friday, the building have a much more colonial aesthetic. Went through the art gallery underneath the Basilica, stopped by the presidential palace, and then headed back to school to pick up luggage for a trip to Otavalo, a smaller town north of Quito. We got there and it got dark really quickly as were deciding where to stay the night (some of the lamp posts weren't working, and some of the stores used candlelight). I broke off in a group to stay at La Luna hostel about 20 minutes outside of Otavalo. It was a little more pricey than staying in the city, but definitely worth it for the serenity.
Took a trip to a waterfall then, that was pretty cool (like literally, a couple guys stood under it and came out numb). Went back to Otavalo then to shop around the huge open air market, and when we were good and tired, headed back home. That night I then played a computer game for 2 hours straight, so it was a pretty sweet day.

Yesterday I went biking with my host family because Quito blocks off a whole 1 mile long street every Sunday. Wish I had taken pictures but I plan on biking again so I'll have some then.

Pictures up top, videos below

I've finally figured out the slideshow and video bar, show you can find them at the top and bottom of the page respectively. The video section might at times show some random videos that have absolutely nothing to do with me, but that's YouTube for you. Anyway, I'm hoping to do some traveling this weekend, and I'll keep you all posted.

Picture Dump 2

Standing on the equator (give or take a couple feet)


Ugh, I'm not a fan of the formatting of posts for photos. I can't figure out how to put up a slide show either. Oh well, hopefully I can upload the videos to youtube and then just embed them in the blog. Thanks everyone for the supportive comments!
























(Left) My room
(Below) A Cinnnabon restaurant



(Below) View from my room

Something to worry about

So I just got back from a hotel on the equator, expect pictures and video on Monday. I think I might try using photobucket because blogger has a limit of data, but it can also display a slideshow of pictures uploaded to photobucket.

Anyway, the trip to the equator this weekend was supposed to be a sort of bonding experience for all the students, and I think it worked in some respect, I mean, we all are getting along. But as far as making friends though I´m not having much luck. Normally I´d be like ¨pff, I´ve already got tons of great friends like those of you reading the blog¨ but I´ve reached the point here where I´ve realized that this isn´t just some short trip, it´s not like I´m going back soon, I´m going to be here for 14 weeks, 8 of those I´m going to be taking classes with the other students.

So yeah, glad we bonded, but at the same time I now feel somewhat estranged after everyone shared their lives. ESPECIALLY last night, when I ended up in a large group that decided to go around a circle and talk about their ¨real¨families - suffice it to say, I didn´t offer my story (figured it might be kind of a downer). Meanwhile, other people shared stories of their travels or their party-going, and again I´m just sort of sitting on the periphery of conversations because I don´t have nearly as many experiences. Naturally, I start to feel self-conscious and worry that I´m being anti-social so I keep putting myself into these conversations.

I guess what I´m trying to say is, I miss you guys! Jonathan, Jacob, Adam, Lillie, Karen, Curtiss, Alyssa, Tom, Tina, and everybody else who have made me feel like I belong somewhere.

And it hasn´t even been a week yet... awesome.

Video of landscape

Captured this video from the school I'm at.

Picture batch 1

We stayed at a hotel the night we got here; I took the picture on the left from my room that night, and then woke up to find out that there were huge mountains behind those dots of light.

I don´t know what I was worried about

Besides giving a guy at the airport a $5 dollar tip, and forgetting my student visa at home, all is well. My host family is fantastic, I´m getting by surprisingly well with my spanish given that I haven´t really used it in a year (although that might be because people are letting me get away with mixing up tenses), I´m finding gluten-free food to eat, and the weather is nice. However, there are classes, some boring, but most really interesting. Today we had a philosopher come in and lead a discussion about global identity. I mustered up my spanish and said ¨Soy yo. Y puedo ser solo yo.¨(I am me. And I can be only me) The rest of what I said was a horrific jumble of Spanish but that first part was pretty good. What I was saying was that while I was worried before I came here about my hair and my clothes, I realized at the last moment that changing my appearance won´t make me stand out any less, and I just have to accept that I am who I am: forgetful, friendly, funny, American. Being American is the only thing that really differentiates me from some Ecuadorians here, and that doesn´t mean much actually. What it means to be American I think I´ll articulate in another post, but that´s enough philosophy for this post. Expect a batch of photos and videos tomorrow!