Tiburones de Tierras

Weather: Sunny, rainy for about a half hour in afternoon

Today marks a solid week of living in the Galapagos Islands which is nuts! It's the same as Quito in that I feel like I've been here for awhile but not long at all at the same time. This morning started off 100x better than yesterday and after today I think it's only up from here. I realized that I am having the most unique study abroad experience because I am literally living on an island which is so cool, and I am eager to island hop and see the rest of the archipelago. It is about $25 each way to get to Santa Cruz so obviously it can't be an every weekend thing but I hope to go to Santa Cruz at the end of this month. In mid march our Spring break IES is taking us island hopping for 4-5 days until the Tuesday of our Spring break. I plan to continue island hopping for the rest of the week and get in some good hiking.

I talked to a friend from UMaine who is studying abroad in Croatia right now and she was telling me about all the countries she is going to. I was a tad envious since she is seeing so much however, I know I will be more connected with Ecuador by the time my program ends. I already consider Ecuador a second home and I imagine it'll become a deeper affection in 3 months. I am super thankful for this experience as I'll never have the chance to live in the islands for 3 months again. I am just afraid that once the real world comes I will get trapped in a routine and won't have the opportunities to travel much. I've been considering grad school in Europe so there's that...There's so many opportunities and life is all what you make it so it will be interesting to see where I end up going/what I end up doing in the future.

Today I took a taxi from campus with Sara to Loberia which is a beach located opposite side of town. We met up with my friends Nicola, Hannah, and Sam. Another girl Ally was there but I am not close with her as she is a drama queen and thrives off of it. She has hated the island since we got here; she wants to be back in Quito. Part of this is because her friends have been talking to some guys here and she is no longer the first choice. In Quito she was talking to 4 different guys at once and I guess that's the environment she needs to be in to thrive. It is absolutely pathetic and we're no longer in the 5th grade, so I am avoiding her like the plague as I came here to get away from drama. Anyways, they all had to observe sea lions that were there for a project so Sara and I went snorkeling. I wore my chacos into the water because Loberia is really rocky and there's sea urchins everywhere. Ever since the sea cucumber was overfished, the sea urchin population here has been on the rise. You certainly don't want to step on one so you just have to be careful. Another thing you have to be careful about is the currents at Loberia. As long as you stay in the little alcove before it opens up to the ocean you'll be okay but Sara and I felt them moving us back and forth while we snorkeled and we were really close to shore. While snorkeling there were a lot of little black and yellow fish that were trying to nibble on my toes and a couple of bigger fish. It was really cool and it never gets old. There were 2 sea lions just hanging out on the beach too.

We all left Loberia after a couple hours and headed to Playa Mann which is across from campus. Nicola and I joined Olivia and Erica for lunch at a snack joint up the street from campus. We wanted to go to our normal lunch spot which is 3 different food vendors set up next to each other across the street from campus right on the street. However, everything on this island shuts down on Sundays so everyone and their brother was getting lunch from our normal lunch spot. On a slow day they take forever for lunch so we decided that grilled cheese and ice cream from the snack spot would hold us over. After lunch we headed to Playa Mann and hung out til 7pm. I headed home for dinner which was spaghetti and tuna with onions and peppers. It wasn't terrible it just smelt like fish and tasted a tad too fishy for me. It was filling though and the pasta was tasty!

In regards to the title of this entry, it means 'land shark' which refers to some of the guys on this island. We were warned by our program director that there are guys here that know exactly who we are, they know exactly how long we are staying, and every semester they go after a new girl. Yesterday, some of my friends went out to the disco again and I don't know if the guys they met would be considered a

land shark. I met 2 of them at the beach today and both were so nice. One of them (Jesus) was with my friend Morgan, and he was being pretty flirty with all of us so I'd say he is one of them. He's also like 4-5 inches shorter than Morgan which is pretty funny. He's tall for an Ecuadorian but Morgan is like 6'2.'' Nicola met a guy too and he was really nice, he talked to us all but he was focused on her which was nice to see and I wouldn't consider him to be a tiburone. I just thought it was funny because us gringas hanging with the locals were getting some stares from the locals that were sharing the beach with us. They may know about the land sharks but they also may be confused as to why we were hanging out. Actually, on my way to get my snorkel stuff today from campus there was a guy walking towards me that said "hola" so obviously I said it back and then he goes "GUAPA" which means beautiful or attractive. I just kept walking but the dudes here are extremely blunt and know no boundaries. It definitely made me laugh a bit, and put a smile on my face.

It will certainly be interesting to see where the rest of the semester takes us all. I plan to continue to avoid any drama that comes along. I hope my Spanish continues to improve and I hope I am at least somewhat advanced by the time I go home. I hope to start using Rosetta Stone to enforce what I know and help me improve. Overall, today was a great day and super relaxing. I'm getting used to island life in that I can be okay with not doing much at all during the day. This may make my move back to Boston a bit rough as us massholes are always going non-stop at 100mph.