OlympiaSeattleAtlantaQuitoSanAntonio

After a crazy whirlwind of a day, I made it happily and safely to Ecuador late last night. After a huge breakfast and trying to get to know the people on my program (everyone seems really interesting and fun!), we moved out of Quito for some orientation stuff in a small town about a half an hour away, best known for its proximity to the equator. We´re in an absolutely adorable hotel, but we spend most of the time in the conference room learning the basics of this semester.

The academic directors are pretty great, and besides learning about all of the lovely ways we can get sick here (roundworm, anyone?), it was actually pretty interesting. At one point they set us off into the city in groups of three to find different kinds of stores and talk to people and whatnot in preparation for Thursday where they drop us off in another village and tell us to get back to Quito however we can be the afternoon. Self-reliance and all that... It should be character building, if nothing else.

So far, I think I´ve spent at least a third of the day eating. It´s seriously all we do. Every meal has been completely enormous and delicious! Dinner is in an hour, even though we just had a huge snack and lunch not long before. Luckily I´ll hopefully be walking a lot since rugby isn´t exactly available here and running around town alone isn´t particularly appealing...

I´m not sure when I´ll next be able to update this... The next few days are full of more orientation, Spanish testing, exploring, and maybe some karaoke singing before we head back to Quito and move in with our homestay families... It´s all pretty intimidating but incredibly exciting!

Adios Olympia...

So, as promised, I'm going to keep a blog while I'm in Ecuador. I don't really know at this point how often I'll have access to internet or how frequently I'll be able to update this, but I'll do my best.

I LEAVE TOMORROW!

This is super exciting. I've always thought of study abroad as this crazy, far away thing that I never actually saw happening, and it's finally here, and I can't wait! It's just slightly less cool when I realize that I'll be leaving my house at 3am and won't make it to Ecuador until around 10pm, but, nevertheless, it remains awesome. To give you some idea of how I'll spending my next four months, I'll be traveling around Ecuador (primarily in and around the capital city of Quito) studying "Culture and Development," speaking lots of Spanish, living with host families, exploring, and generally having an amazing time (or so I hope).

Goodbyes have been said, and I'm finally all packed, even if it feels like too much and too little all at once... Now my only goal for tonight is to get an hour or two of sleep before I leave for my day of travel, but I'll try to update when I'm able to find internet in Ecuador. Goodbye, Washington! ¡Hola, Ecuador!