I´M HERE!

Wowza! I´ve been in Ecuador for about a week now and things are crazy in the best way possible. I´m going to try to give a brief summary of the happenings so far.

I flew into Quito (the capital of Ecuador) with a friend from highschool who is also by coincidence studying here on a different program.  We settled into a great hostal with fantastic views of the city and a cheap, delicious breakfast ($2.80 for fruit, yogurt, granola, and an 2-egg omelet! Ecuador is so kind to the wallet). We spent a few days before our respective programs walking around the city, exploring the many parks and cobblestoned roads of Quito´s ¨Old Town.¨ Some highlights: having a lengthly conversation with two kind souls running a watch shop who played us some traditional Andean music (guitar and panflute);  eating cow´s stomache for the first time, thanks to a slight moment lost in translation; being inspired by hostal travelers bussing around South America and assuring me that really, Colombia is not as dangerous as everyone says (as long as you are smart about it of course); and having our first experience as the victims of a theft attempt (sometimes people squirt things on you in order to distract you so they can steal your bags. Caroline and I got ¨pooped on by a bird,¨ which I am a little suspicious of, given that we were on a busy street and were the only two people hit... and the only white people on the street.  Luckily we had read up on the high street crime before we came, so knew to hold on to our bags.).

My program started on Sunday, and it´s been a lot of program-logistics since then.  Exceptions include an awesome day trip to Yanacocha Ecological Reserve, where we spent the day hiking through high Andean forest learning the spanish names of flora and fauna and observing hummingbirds from a distance of what I would guess to be less than three feet; and attending an awesome salsa lesson -- perhaps SIT´s attempt to minimize total embarrassment in Quito´s Salsotecas (yay!).  I could not be more excited about our program´s itinerary, but instead of boring you by listing it here, I figure I´ll uncover it as the semester progresses.  But I will tell you that it´s really, really awesome in the mind of the environmentalist.  For example: this Saturday we are taking a bus to a Cloud Forest, where we will be staying for a week to hike through the forest, wake up at 6AM to study birds in the ecosystem, and stay with a rural homestay for three days (among many, many other things). I would say more but I have a lot of reading about Cloud Forest ecosystems that I must attend to...

I hope America is doing well and dandy, and that the music you are listening to over there is better than the American music that they like to play here.
Ciao!