So I don’t usually post more than once a week, but this Sunday deserves its own. In short, at around 12:30 Saturday night, a couple of my friends told me about their plans to summit the mountain Pasochoa in the morning. Of course I wanted in, so we stopped by my apartment to grab my stuff, and drove to Cumbaya (the suburb of my university) to spend the night at my friend Esteban’s house, so that we could leave early in the morning to start the climb.
After about 3 hours of sleep, we woke up at 5:45, drank some coffee, grabbed some sandwiches, and hopped in the car to Pasochoa Forest Reserve where the mountain is located, about an hour and a half away from Cumbaya. Pasachoa has an elevation of about 4200 km, and is one of the mountains in a series of training summits for people training to climb Cotopaxi (the mountain with the glacier we visited). So our group was a really cool group of people, a lot of whom were working their way up to climbing Cotopaxi in the future. Esteban’s friend Mario was our guide, along with a few other guys who had climbed Cotopaxi and a bunch of other really difficult mountains before, so it was great getting to hear all their stories!
It took about 4.5 hours up to the top, and it wasn’t anything really technical but just a really scenic, sometimes challenging hike. The top was a rock face from which you could see everything, including a huge caldera where a volcano had collapsed behind us, and the peaks of a few of the famous volcanoes in the country. It was pretty surreal, especially to think about how quickly everything had changed to bring me up there—just a really spontaneous decision a few hours before..
Up at the top we took a bunch of pictures (duh) and had a snack before starting the descent. On the way back once it flattened out towards the base we took our time and getting to know some of the people in our group and enjoying the scenery. At the bottom we were all exhausted and hungry but super satisfied. I’d only summited one mountain before (Mt. Leconte on the NC-TN) border, but it’s a pretty addicting feeling to make it to the top…hopefully I’ll get some more opportunities like this as the semester goes on!
ps. new pictures up on picassa, and soon to come on facebook hopefully!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
A la playa!!
At 4:30 Wednesday morning, I got back from a 5 day trip to the beach, and I’m almost speechless. Almost. Actually, I’m really excited to talk about it!
This past week was the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval , which if I’m correct, is a celebration to mark the start of Lent…sort of an extended Fat Tuesday. So everyone had Monday and Tuesday off from school or work, and since most of us don’t have classes anyway on Friday, it quickly turned into an extremely extended long weekend (which was much needed). However, we actually got pretty lucky, none of the exchange kids really realized the magnitude of Carnaval, and we figured we’d just be able to go to the beach like any other weekend, sort of on the fly, spur of the moment. NOT so. Once people told us to make reservations, I actually spend about 2 hours on the phone with hostals, all of them completely full. Once we finally found a place to stay, we had to go to about 3 different bus companies to find one that wasn’t sold out…so like I said, we were quite lucky that everything actually worked out. And after the slight mishap of getting my cell phone pick pocketed on the bus to catch the overnight bus we took to the coast, everything went better than expected.
The bus ride there was long, cramped, and sticky—we left Quito at about 8 pm Thursday and arrived in Puerto Lopez (a beach town to the south) at about 6:30 in the morning. After stumbling into our hostel and taking a quick power nap, we ate breakfast and spent 3 out of the next 4 days on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. But also the hostel couldn’t have been better—it was run by really cool, friendly people, and it was $10 a night for a clean room with private bathrooms, hot water, and a ballin breakfast of rolls, eggs, fruit salad, and coffee…and hammocks!! Also, our hostel-mates happened to be the squad of extra police that they decided to bring in to control the festivities so I guess we were either super secure there, or suffocated by corruption (however you want to look at the Ecuadorian police..) The beach in Puerto Lopez itself was super crowded (picture Wrightsville on memorial day weekend or something), but about 20 minutes down the road was the entrance to Machalilla National Forest, the only national park on the coast. Here, with our student visas, we paid a $5 entrance fee good for 4 days, and had free reign to explore the 3 beaches nearby: Los Frailes, Tortuga, and La Playa Negra (with black sand!!). The beaches were so deserted and pristine, and I’d never been anywhere with such a striking combination of rocky capes and cliffs (like northern Cali) with long stretches of sandy coastline like in North Carolina. The surf was safe but exciting, and every day we packed a lunch from in town, and spent the day reading, relaxing, swimming, exploring, throwing a Frisbee…etc. paradise. And at night back in Puerto Lopez we ate ridiculously cheap and fresh seafood and experienced the carnaval night life with some of the guys that worked at our hostel.
One of the days (Sunday), we went to Isla de la Plata, an island 42 km off the coast of Puerto Lopez that’s apparently the “poor man’s Galapagos” with a similar geological history and so a lot of the same wildlife. It was about a 2 hour boatride out there, and then we went on some hikes, ate lunch, and snorkeled! After snorkeling, the tour group that we went out there with (which was run by one of the owners of our hostal), sent the rest of the (less cool…) groups back on other boats because one of our motors broke and we stayed hanging out on the boat, jumping from the top and making friends with the crew. With the broken motor it was a slower ride back but really relaxing and beautiful. Also, when the crew found out I knew how to drive a boat using all the navigational tools and depth readers, etc they made me la capitan for about an hour (thanks Captain Ford!)
The last morning I got up early and went for a bike ride with one of the guys who ran the hostel. We biked (slash pushed most of the way) to the top of this mountain in the national park, and from there you could see everything—the mountains to the east and the pacific ocean out to the west. Whoa. Then it was a really fast, windy downhill coast back to the main road. Whoa. We spent the rest of that day on the beach in Puerto Lopez just to check it out, and it was the only day we had any rain, which for me is always a good sign if it rains on the day you’re supposed to leave the beach. That night after packing up, eating one last bowl of $2.50 ceviche, and saying goodbye to our new “family” in Puerto Lopez, ie. The people at the hostel, we left on the overnight bus at about 8 for the trip back to Quito. And where the last one had been suffocatingly hot, this one was sub artic, but about 2 hours shorter for no apparent reason really…so we got to Quito at 4:30 am exhausted, sunburned, and satisfied. And speaking of the sunburn, a) they aren't lying when they say sun on the equator is actually stronger...spf 15 ain't gonna cut it, and b) despite how cheap everything else is here, since gringos are the only ones buying sunscreen they jack the price of that incredibly high...i payed $14 for a regular sized bottle the other day!!! but don't worry mom, even the extreme tightwad in me isn't willing to risk 3rd degree burns..
So as is the life of study abroad, I had classes Wednesday and Thursday before the start of another 3 day weekend…tough huh? On Thursday afternoon I witnessed a HUGE protest in the park against Correa the president, we’ll see what happens on that front. Last night I went with my family to the birthday party of a 10 year old cousin, complete with make your own pizza and a Hanna Montana birthday cake. Then we watched Forrest Gump with all the cousins…did I even leave my family in the states?! JK MISS YOU GUYS TONS!
Anyway, enjoy the last week of February everyone!
Love,
Kate
This past week was the Ecuadorian holiday Carnaval , which if I’m correct, is a celebration to mark the start of Lent…sort of an extended Fat Tuesday. So everyone had Monday and Tuesday off from school or work, and since most of us don’t have classes anyway on Friday, it quickly turned into an extremely extended long weekend (which was much needed). However, we actually got pretty lucky, none of the exchange kids really realized the magnitude of Carnaval, and we figured we’d just be able to go to the beach like any other weekend, sort of on the fly, spur of the moment. NOT so. Once people told us to make reservations, I actually spend about 2 hours on the phone with hostals, all of them completely full. Once we finally found a place to stay, we had to go to about 3 different bus companies to find one that wasn’t sold out…so like I said, we were quite lucky that everything actually worked out. And after the slight mishap of getting my cell phone pick pocketed on the bus to catch the overnight bus we took to the coast, everything went better than expected.
The bus ride there was long, cramped, and sticky—we left Quito at about 8 pm Thursday and arrived in Puerto Lopez (a beach town to the south) at about 6:30 in the morning. After stumbling into our hostel and taking a quick power nap, we ate breakfast and spent 3 out of the next 4 days on the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen. But also the hostel couldn’t have been better—it was run by really cool, friendly people, and it was $10 a night for a clean room with private bathrooms, hot water, and a ballin breakfast of rolls, eggs, fruit salad, and coffee…and hammocks!! Also, our hostel-mates happened to be the squad of extra police that they decided to bring in to control the festivities so I guess we were either super secure there, or suffocated by corruption (however you want to look at the Ecuadorian police..) The beach in Puerto Lopez itself was super crowded (picture Wrightsville on memorial day weekend or something), but about 20 minutes down the road was the entrance to Machalilla National Forest, the only national park on the coast. Here, with our student visas, we paid a $5 entrance fee good for 4 days, and had free reign to explore the 3 beaches nearby: Los Frailes, Tortuga, and La Playa Negra (with black sand!!). The beaches were so deserted and pristine, and I’d never been anywhere with such a striking combination of rocky capes and cliffs (like northern Cali) with long stretches of sandy coastline like in North Carolina. The surf was safe but exciting, and every day we packed a lunch from in town, and spent the day reading, relaxing, swimming, exploring, throwing a Frisbee…etc. paradise. And at night back in Puerto Lopez we ate ridiculously cheap and fresh seafood and experienced the carnaval night life with some of the guys that worked at our hostel.
One of the days (Sunday), we went to Isla de la Plata, an island 42 km off the coast of Puerto Lopez that’s apparently the “poor man’s Galapagos” with a similar geological history and so a lot of the same wildlife. It was about a 2 hour boatride out there, and then we went on some hikes, ate lunch, and snorkeled! After snorkeling, the tour group that we went out there with (which was run by one of the owners of our hostal), sent the rest of the (less cool…) groups back on other boats because one of our motors broke and we stayed hanging out on the boat, jumping from the top and making friends with the crew. With the broken motor it was a slower ride back but really relaxing and beautiful. Also, when the crew found out I knew how to drive a boat using all the navigational tools and depth readers, etc they made me la capitan for about an hour (thanks Captain Ford!)
The last morning I got up early and went for a bike ride with one of the guys who ran the hostel. We biked (slash pushed most of the way) to the top of this mountain in the national park, and from there you could see everything—the mountains to the east and the pacific ocean out to the west. Whoa. Then it was a really fast, windy downhill coast back to the main road. Whoa. We spent the rest of that day on the beach in Puerto Lopez just to check it out, and it was the only day we had any rain, which for me is always a good sign if it rains on the day you’re supposed to leave the beach. That night after packing up, eating one last bowl of $2.50 ceviche, and saying goodbye to our new “family” in Puerto Lopez, ie. The people at the hostel, we left on the overnight bus at about 8 for the trip back to Quito. And where the last one had been suffocatingly hot, this one was sub artic, but about 2 hours shorter for no apparent reason really…so we got to Quito at 4:30 am exhausted, sunburned, and satisfied. And speaking of the sunburn, a) they aren't lying when they say sun on the equator is actually stronger...spf 15 ain't gonna cut it, and b) despite how cheap everything else is here, since gringos are the only ones buying sunscreen they jack the price of that incredibly high...i payed $14 for a regular sized bottle the other day!!! but don't worry mom, even the extreme tightwad in me isn't willing to risk 3rd degree burns..
So as is the life of study abroad, I had classes Wednesday and Thursday before the start of another 3 day weekend…tough huh? On Thursday afternoon I witnessed a HUGE protest in the park against Correa the president, we’ll see what happens on that front. Last night I went with my family to the birthday party of a 10 year old cousin, complete with make your own pizza and a Hanna Montana birthday cake. Then we watched Forrest Gump with all the cousins…did I even leave my family in the states?! JK MISS YOU GUYS TONS!
Anyway, enjoy the last week of February everyone!
Love,
Kate
Monday, February 8, 2010
...and thats how I ended up in prison..
Exciting weekend! After spending an extremely frustrating amount of time Friday unsuccessfully trying to make reservations at the beach for next weekend, a holiday, Saturday and Sunday were full of adventure.
Saturday morning we left at 7 am from Quito, for Cotopaxi National Park as a field trip for our volcanology class. Cotopaxi is a really tall, famous volcanic mountain about 3 hours from Quito (google it!) We drove a little ways up the mountain, then got out of the buses and hiked the rest of the way up to the glacier. It was extremely exhausting but totally worth it! It’s a pretty unbelievable feeling to go from 75 degrees in Quito to surrounded by snow on the slope of a volcano in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately, our professor is slightly absent-minded and didn’t tell to come to the fieldtrip prepared for cold, so I climbed it in pants and a light fleece. It took about 3 hours to thaw out after that experience…
In the early evening we arrived in the city of Banos, a popular tourist destination for extranjeros and Ecuadorians alike because of all the outdoors activities nearby, and that’s where we spent the night. Most of the Ecuadorians on the trip had been to Banos and sort of knew the lay of the land, so they knew what to do to have a good time there. That night they organized a “chiva”—picture an open air-party bus, with a dance floor in the back half—to take us to a lookout spot above the city. So we rode to the top of this hill, and from there you could see all of Banos spread out below and the volcano Tungurahua (which explodes every 20-30 minutes) in the distance.
We woke up at 5 am Sunday to head to Pailon del Diablo, a huge waterfall outside of Banos. We hiked about 30 minutes down a canyon to the waterfall as the sun was coming up. Seeing the falls from the bottom was pretty incredible, but the main attraction is the tunnel that they built that winds its way up behind the falls to a lookout spot at the top, directly behind the flow of water. Unfortunately, it was so early that the entrance to that path was still locked…and this is how I should have ended up in jail:
Our teacher, Theo, was pretty disappointed for us that we weren’t going to get to go to the top of the waterfall, so he said off handedly to me, “you should just see if you can climb up that wall and over the gate at the entrance”. Well, if he was being sarcastic I couldn’t tell (a combination of his greek accent and broken Spanish)… I went for it. I made it over the top of the gate and to the other side, where I looked around, unsuccessfully, for the key to let the others in. I couldn’t find it, but I figured since I was already over, I HAD to go see the top, right? So I walked up the path, wedged my way through the tunnel, and came out behind the cascade with the wall of water falling all around me. It was incredible (and probably slightly more so knowing it was slightly illegal…)! As I made my way back to the group, a few others had climbed over, so I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who got to see it.
After hiking back to the bus, we returned to Banos for a much needed breakfast, and then set off for the volcano Tungurahua, the most active volcano in Ecuador because it produces a small explosion of ash, rock, and vapor every 20 or 30 minutes. Even though it happens so consistently, it was still a pretty unfamiliar feeling to sit on the slope of a volcano while it erupts over your shoulder! Around mid afternoon we hit the road back to Quito—Theo had promised to have us back in time for the Super Bowl… I think the weekend got the best of me and I got pretty sick Sunday night but I’m feeling better now, and pretty invincible after facing a glacier, freezing rain, a near escape from the Ecuadorian legal system, a hike down a canyon in the pitch darkness, the most active volcano in Ecuador, and the “24 hr bug” in less than 2 days!
Saturday morning we left at 7 am from Quito, for Cotopaxi National Park as a field trip for our volcanology class. Cotopaxi is a really tall, famous volcanic mountain about 3 hours from Quito (google it!) We drove a little ways up the mountain, then got out of the buses and hiked the rest of the way up to the glacier. It was extremely exhausting but totally worth it! It’s a pretty unbelievable feeling to go from 75 degrees in Quito to surrounded by snow on the slope of a volcano in less than 3 hours. Unfortunately, our professor is slightly absent-minded and didn’t tell to come to the fieldtrip prepared for cold, so I climbed it in pants and a light fleece. It took about 3 hours to thaw out after that experience…
In the early evening we arrived in the city of Banos, a popular tourist destination for extranjeros and Ecuadorians alike because of all the outdoors activities nearby, and that’s where we spent the night. Most of the Ecuadorians on the trip had been to Banos and sort of knew the lay of the land, so they knew what to do to have a good time there. That night they organized a “chiva”—picture an open air-party bus, with a dance floor in the back half—to take us to a lookout spot above the city. So we rode to the top of this hill, and from there you could see all of Banos spread out below and the volcano Tungurahua (which explodes every 20-30 minutes) in the distance.
We woke up at 5 am Sunday to head to Pailon del Diablo, a huge waterfall outside of Banos. We hiked about 30 minutes down a canyon to the waterfall as the sun was coming up. Seeing the falls from the bottom was pretty incredible, but the main attraction is the tunnel that they built that winds its way up behind the falls to a lookout spot at the top, directly behind the flow of water. Unfortunately, it was so early that the entrance to that path was still locked…and this is how I should have ended up in jail:
Our teacher, Theo, was pretty disappointed for us that we weren’t going to get to go to the top of the waterfall, so he said off handedly to me, “you should just see if you can climb up that wall and over the gate at the entrance”. Well, if he was being sarcastic I couldn’t tell (a combination of his greek accent and broken Spanish)… I went for it. I made it over the top of the gate and to the other side, where I looked around, unsuccessfully, for the key to let the others in. I couldn’t find it, but I figured since I was already over, I HAD to go see the top, right? So I walked up the path, wedged my way through the tunnel, and came out behind the cascade with the wall of water falling all around me. It was incredible (and probably slightly more so knowing it was slightly illegal…)! As I made my way back to the group, a few others had climbed over, so I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who got to see it.
After hiking back to the bus, we returned to Banos for a much needed breakfast, and then set off for the volcano Tungurahua, the most active volcano in Ecuador because it produces a small explosion of ash, rock, and vapor every 20 or 30 minutes. Even though it happens so consistently, it was still a pretty unfamiliar feeling to sit on the slope of a volcano while it erupts over your shoulder! Around mid afternoon we hit the road back to Quito—Theo had promised to have us back in time for the Super Bowl… I think the weekend got the best of me and I got pretty sick Sunday night but I’m feeling better now, and pretty invincible after facing a glacier, freezing rain, a near escape from the Ecuadorian legal system, a hike down a canyon in the pitch darkness, the most active volcano in Ecuador, and the “24 hr bug” in less than 2 days!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Just a few thoughts...
This was a pretty normal week, and it was nice to actually spend a weekend in Quito just exploring and hanging out with some of the new friends I've met instead of traveling. Although there's definitely an understandable divide between the Ecuadorians and the exchange students at school, I've been hanging out with a cool mix of some students from here in Ecuador and some really awesome new people from all over the US.
On Friday I went with my friend Kristen (from Texas) and 2 guys, Juan and Esteban, some "friends of a friend" of a girl from her university who studied here last semester, to watch them do all those crazy dirt bike tricks and jumps and stuff in a town by our university. It was actually a really surreal experience...we drove to a neighborhood near the school that was filled with these beautiful old spanish style haciendas and villas. They were all really big, colorful, stucco buildings and there was moss and tropical plants growing everywhere, really like a scene out of a movie. In the back of one of the houses the owner had built a huge bike park with a bunch of jumps, a half pipe, ramps and other stuff for bike tricks. We stayed there till dark watching a bunch of guys do really incredible tricks and it was just a really bizzare and unique experience with the sun setting behind the park, in the middle of this like tropical, "junglely" paradiseon a hill that literally overlooking the entire valley below. haha its really hard to explain in words...but as I said before, it felt like a scene out of a movie or something.
Sunday we spent a bunch of time in the Parque Carolina, the huge park by my apartment. On Sundays it is literally packed with people...great for people watching and playing pickup sports which we've started doing alot of. There are families pic-nicking, teams playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, and tennis, pony rides, people selling all sorts of snacks, a skate park, playgrounds, paddle boats, kids learning to ride their bikes, joggers, walkers, magicians, people flying kites--everything. Maybe its because I don't live in a city with a big enough public green-space (like Central Park or something), but I've never seen this type of activity in the US. I really like the idea of everyone enjoying the outdoors together, and its something I rarely see at home.
Along those lines, as much as I've noticed alot of similarities between people here and at home, there are some examples of cultural differences that I find pretty interesting:
First, here, lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and dinner is really light (like coffee and bread with cheese or something). Lots of people go home from work or school to have lunch with their families like we have dinner with ours. An "almuerzo", or lunch includes a soup, and then a big plate (plato fuerte) of some kind of meat, rice, vegetables or salad, a juice and some kind of desert. If you can't go home for lunch, like alot of students at the university, there are a bunch of restaurants that specialize in "almuerzos"...so you go in, and for literally $2.50, you order el almuerzo del dia and they bring you whatever they've prepared for the day; the soup, main course, juice and desert. so there's no choice involved but its usually something pretty tasty and filling.
Secondly the concept of time. After being in Uganda this summer, its really interesting to see how this aspect of a culture progresses with development. So here, in terms of being really laid back and flexible about time, people are in between the US and Uganda, where there was absolutely no concept of time or efficiency. I think they've got a good balance here between being relaxed, but still being able to count on people to show up for appointments, etc. One of the things that happens here that you'd never see at home is that when people are waiting for a bus, instead of cramming on like they do in the subways, etc at home, alot of people will just wait in line for successive buses to come until they can get a seat. Even though standing up is totally acceptable, like on the metro, people prefer to wait the extra 10 or 15 minutes until they can ride comfortably.
Another thing thats really different about Ecuador, but something I really prefer about the States, is the lack of any school spirit or campus life at the University. There are virtually no clubs or sports teams to take part in, so no ones really involved or passionate about the university they attend. Its weird coming from the US where everyone has so much school spirit and pride, and most people are involved in a few different aspects of campus life. College here is almost just an extension of high school. Most people still live with their parents and maybe even get dropped off each day by them for classes, and not many people particpate in anything on campus outside of classes. Its interesting that for all of us exchange students, the experience is great and we're having a blast, but we were talking the other day and none of us can imagine that people from Ecuador look back on their years in college and think "man, those were some of the best 4 years of my life", like they do in the US. Its just a totally different experience.
Anyway, just some general reflections on things that I've found interesting...hope you all kind of did too!
love,
kate
On Friday I went with my friend Kristen (from Texas) and 2 guys, Juan and Esteban, some "friends of a friend" of a girl from her university who studied here last semester, to watch them do all those crazy dirt bike tricks and jumps and stuff in a town by our university. It was actually a really surreal experience...we drove to a neighborhood near the school that was filled with these beautiful old spanish style haciendas and villas. They were all really big, colorful, stucco buildings and there was moss and tropical plants growing everywhere, really like a scene out of a movie. In the back of one of the houses the owner had built a huge bike park with a bunch of jumps, a half pipe, ramps and other stuff for bike tricks. We stayed there till dark watching a bunch of guys do really incredible tricks and it was just a really bizzare and unique experience with the sun setting behind the park, in the middle of this like tropical, "junglely" paradiseon a hill that literally overlooking the entire valley below. haha its really hard to explain in words...but as I said before, it felt like a scene out of a movie or something.
Sunday we spent a bunch of time in the Parque Carolina, the huge park by my apartment. On Sundays it is literally packed with people...great for people watching and playing pickup sports which we've started doing alot of. There are families pic-nicking, teams playing soccer, volleyball, basketball, and tennis, pony rides, people selling all sorts of snacks, a skate park, playgrounds, paddle boats, kids learning to ride their bikes, joggers, walkers, magicians, people flying kites--everything. Maybe its because I don't live in a city with a big enough public green-space (like Central Park or something), but I've never seen this type of activity in the US. I really like the idea of everyone enjoying the outdoors together, and its something I rarely see at home.
Along those lines, as much as I've noticed alot of similarities between people here and at home, there are some examples of cultural differences that I find pretty interesting:
First, here, lunch is the biggest meal of the day, and dinner is really light (like coffee and bread with cheese or something). Lots of people go home from work or school to have lunch with their families like we have dinner with ours. An "almuerzo", or lunch includes a soup, and then a big plate (plato fuerte) of some kind of meat, rice, vegetables or salad, a juice and some kind of desert. If you can't go home for lunch, like alot of students at the university, there are a bunch of restaurants that specialize in "almuerzos"...so you go in, and for literally $2.50, you order el almuerzo del dia and they bring you whatever they've prepared for the day; the soup, main course, juice and desert. so there's no choice involved but its usually something pretty tasty and filling.
Secondly the concept of time. After being in Uganda this summer, its really interesting to see how this aspect of a culture progresses with development. So here, in terms of being really laid back and flexible about time, people are in between the US and Uganda, where there was absolutely no concept of time or efficiency. I think they've got a good balance here between being relaxed, but still being able to count on people to show up for appointments, etc. One of the things that happens here that you'd never see at home is that when people are waiting for a bus, instead of cramming on like they do in the subways, etc at home, alot of people will just wait in line for successive buses to come until they can get a seat. Even though standing up is totally acceptable, like on the metro, people prefer to wait the extra 10 or 15 minutes until they can ride comfortably.
Another thing thats really different about Ecuador, but something I really prefer about the States, is the lack of any school spirit or campus life at the University. There are virtually no clubs or sports teams to take part in, so no ones really involved or passionate about the university they attend. Its weird coming from the US where everyone has so much school spirit and pride, and most people are involved in a few different aspects of campus life. College here is almost just an extension of high school. Most people still live with their parents and maybe even get dropped off each day by them for classes, and not many people particpate in anything on campus outside of classes. Its interesting that for all of us exchange students, the experience is great and we're having a blast, but we were talking the other day and none of us can imagine that people from Ecuador look back on their years in college and think "man, those were some of the best 4 years of my life", like they do in the US. Its just a totally different experience.
Anyway, just some general reflections on things that I've found interesting...hope you all kind of did too!
love,
kate
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