Weather: Sunny and Hot, Occasional rain throughout the week

Well, I've successfully completed the first week of GIS and let me say this is my least favorite class. It's a combination of the professor and the learning environment. The computers we use barely work how they are supposed to making things really hard to accomplish and stay on task. I didn't have the chance to get to the beach once this week because I spent a lot of time outside of class in the GIS lab doing the exercises for the homework assignments we need to complete. School comes first, but I hope I'm able to enjoy my last two weeks here.

On Wednesday (4/17), Megan, Olivia, and I met with this woman Stephanie who works with the dean of students of IES. She is in charge of the health and safety of students. She wanted to meet with students in the program to hear their perspectives and see how we felt throughout our time here. It was a good conversation about the good, bad, and ugly, and I think our insight was definitely helpful to her. She actually visited my house yesterday for a check (Thurs 4/18) and I ran into her at the cafe afterwards. She told me my house was the best one she saw as far as living conditions go so she asked me more questions about the range of living conditions. I explained that everyone has the good and bad with their host families here as it's a huge adjustment from what we were used to in Quito and even more so in the United States.

Other than that nothing too big has gone on this week, I've been getting lunches and doing work with Sara. Yesterday I went on a run with Nicola which was really nice as we got to catch up before she heads off to Santa Cruz for the week. I've been communicating with Willow (my future boss in AK) about logistics and we have a time set up for her to call me when I am home to talk over the phone, as that's a lot easier than email when you're trying to make a move to a new state. I told Dr. Bell and Dr. Ruskin and they were super proud of me and are offering to keep an eye out for some scholarships for housing. Other than that not too much has been going on. There's been a good amount of rain this week so it makes me feel better about being inside doing school work.

Today (Fri 4/19), we had a field trip to Hacienda Tranquila which is a farm in the highlands. We first stopped at the USFQ field site to take 30m by 30m quadrat measurements on our GPS. That took about 2 hours. We were in the direct sun and in a field with long grasses and a lot of cows. After all the groups finished we hiked about 3 miles to the main house of Hacienda Tranquila where we had lunch. It was a boxed lunch so nothing fancy but it did the job. After lunch it was about 1:30pm and we hiked up a hill for about 10-15minutes to an awesome lookout spot where we got a clear view of kicker rock. It was beautiful, there were a few people that hiked up a bit higher to another viewing point but most of us stayed put. After a 20 minutes or so, we headed back down to the house and waited for our bus to come get us at 3pm. It was an odd field trip as it doesn't feel like we did much and it wasn't the best time I've had since being here. Next Friday, we have a 360 tour of San Cristobal so I am looking forward to that as I think I'll be able to see a beach and hike on Punta Pitt which are the two things I haven't done yet on San Cristobal. I'm hoping for some sun too so I can get a bit more tan before I have to return home.

Tonight I went to my first seder in celebration of passover held at the university. It was put on by three of my friends in the program that are Jewish. There were about 25 of us that showed up for it (most I think went just for the free food, but they were respectful throughout the process). It was cool to experience something that occurs within the Jewish religion as Dad doesn't know much about being Jewish. It was an interesting process and they made salad, mashed potatoes, matza ball soup, and rice with lentils. It was really good. Dessert was chocolate cake from Fresco. It ended around 10pm, but I hung out a bit with the people that were still hanging out. Olivia, Micah, Mika, Mohammed, and a few others all headed to Baquero. I guess the family that owns the bar is going on vacation for 2 months so it was the last night we could go while here in San Crisotbal. It's not really my scene but it was nice to see Kayelyn and catch up with her before she heads to Santa Cruz tomorrow. The marine track has diving in Santa Cruz from Monday - Thursday so most of them are heading over this weekend to get away from San Cristobal as boredom is setting in.

I have mixed emotions about leaving, I am nervous for the transition back to life in the states but I am excited to be back in a first world country where I will have immediate access to things I need/want. I'm excited to get back into yoga and see the chiropractor. I'm excited to see everyone but I am not looking forward to hearing "how was study abroad?" and being expected to wrap four months into a couple of sentences... I've thought about how I could answer that question and so far I really have nothing. There's a lot I have to say about experiencing a whole new country and culture, as well as experiencing living in a national park/UNESCO site and seeing the good and the bad that goes along with that. I'm taking it one day at a time and trying to not get too stressed with GIS.