Weather: Between 55-60 degrees and cloudy

This morning I took the bus to campus and arrived successfully with no problems. While walking to the bus I saw a stray pup that was actually on my friends Instagram story the day before. He was absolutely adorable and I wanted to take him home with me. What's weird is that since being here I have seen so many strays, it's almost become the new normal for me (which is sad). For some reason this pup stuck out for some reason, hopefully I'll see him around soon. Anyways, we started off the day with an orientation about the program as a whole. It was extremely similar to the orientation we received from IES on Sunday. The orientation included a talk from the Dean of International Students; he essentially started the entire Galapagos program several years ago. He described the island of San Cristobal (which is where I'll be staying), and he gave a history lesson on the islands. It was almost like I was on a city tour, but just sitting in a classroom. It was super interesting and it made me that much more excited to experience the islands and all their beauty. The orientation concluded with a culture shock talk from a professor named Tamara Trownsell. I actually will be in her Political Ecology course in about 7 weeks. She sent us all an email a couple days ago saying that the course will make us reflect on ourselves maybe more than we are used to, and if we are not comfortable with this then we should think about switching courses. Obviously this made me a bit apprehensive about how she is as a person considering she is sending us an email 7 weeks in advance. After meeting her today and hearing her stories/advice on how to navigate through culture shocked I realized that she is probably going to be one of the funniest professors I've ever had. I am now looking forward to Political Ecology and all the challenges it entails.

Yesterday night I heard from Shawna who is a pharmacist from Colorado that sat next to me on my flight from Miami to Quito. She is on a mission trip here working at a clinic for about two weeks. I honestly forgot who she was until I saw pictures of her clinic she's been working at; just goes to show how busy my mind has been. It was so good to hear from her, she said that her first day there she helped 83 people, 93 on her second day. Leave it to me to keep in touch with someone I met on a plane lol. Shawna has travelled far and wide and I hope that one day I can say that I've been to just as many places!

Tonight Ines was out on the town with some of her friends, so Penelope made me dinner. For some context, I told my host family when I arrived that in the states I would occasionally eat fish if we were eating in a place that didn't have many vegetarian options. Being a vegetarian here is not understood well, a salad here is a cut up tomato, I'm not kidding. So, dinner was fish caught by Penelope's boyfriend, and some small potatoes the size of bouncy balls. Once again, I learned the hard way about an Ecuadorian custom. They do not clean fish before cooking them here. In the states, it is rare to have a bone in your fish...here not so much. My entire fish was filled with bones. Penelope showed me how to get the meat off, and I still couldn't do it right because I ended up with bones in my mouth. This whole experience turned me off to fish, so I'm hoping I can steer away from getting fish through the rest of my time in Quito. I need to find out if restaurants clean the fish...I'd assume so? I will say that the fish I did eat tasted so different from the states. Yes, it was a completely different fish than I would normally eat in the states, but it just tasted like the sea, in a good way.

Day 2 of Spanish went well, all the basics are really coming back to me. Each day I am learning more and more here. Not just Spanish, but about the culture and everyday activities. I'm getting to know my host family better too which is nice. Today Penelope told me she's had her boyfriend for 5 years and that her daughters don't like him. I asked if Ines likes him and she said no because she thinks she should have had a ring a long time ago. Penelope went on to say that they are dating but when he introduces her to people he doesn't say girlfriend. He just says "Penelope meet, (insert name here). This was eye opening because the dating culture is exactly like that for my generation in the states, everyone seems to be afraid of commitment. I guess Penelope was married for 18 years and then 8 years ago she moved back to Ecuador from Spain. I just hope she doesn't settle especially if after 5 years he doesn't even call her his girlfriend.

During our IES orientation the other day they said that this experience would challenge our comfort zones. So far, I think I have definitely pushed the boundaries and challenged my comfort zone in more ways than I can count in such a short time. I'm liking it a lot here and finally feeling more comfortable with my surroundings. I'm looking forward to see how much more my comfort zone will be challenged during my time here. Picture: stray dog I love