1/5/09

Today was the first time I visited the Universidad San Francisco Quito (USFC) and I think the political science speaker said it best “here it is like Laguna Beach 24/7.” (For those of you old people who don’t know what Laguna Beach is, it is a MTV reality show based in a small rich southern California town full of wealthy young people with nothing better to do then shop and create drama.) A foreign exchange student who has already been there a year said “every day is a fashion show for them.” Which is a line straight from Seth Cohen of the OC (another show about rich young people but it is fictional.) You can definitely tell who the Americans are because we are all wearing flip flops, something that Ecuadorians do not do. Although I have no chance of bleeding in, no matter the footwear… my skin speaks volumes of my origin. Other than that the campus visit was very nice, the campus itself is beautiful and somehow very quite even though it is right next to a very busy street. Somehow the wall and trees keep the noise out I guess. The campus is in Cumbaya which is lower in elevation than Quito, where my host family lives. Because of this the weather is slightly different; it is warmer and rains less. On our tour of campus our tour guide, a student, took us to bar across the street where they serve 1 dollar .5 liter beers… I don´t think that was in the literary, but there were no objections.

It turns out my host mother’s parents live on the floor below us and they also have a student, David, from the same program as me. It is very convenient to have someone to go to the internet café with and to ride the bus with. The buses are very interesting here the drivers are kind of crazy and there is no schedule or real bus stops. You literally can flag down a bus and they will stop for you where ever, even the on an inside lane sometimes. We have to take 2 buses to get to campus and it takes about 45 minutes if you get lucky and catch the second bus right after the first. My parents came along with us yesterday (we went to go see the campus, but it was Sunday so no one was there) and today, but tomorrow David and I are on our own. I think we can handle it. Today on our ride home for the first time I was able to enjoy the view, usually the bus driver is a little crazy and take the twisty road so fast all you can think about is holding on for dear life. Today´s driver was different he actually went at a comfortable speed. The plants on the side of the road look like they are from the Jurassic period. I don’t know the name but they look a lot like oversized aloe plants, or agave plants. When we got back to Quito is was slightly raining and cloudy. There were some clouds in Cumbaya but it was not raining. My host mother said the typical day in Quito it is sunny in the morning then it rains in the afternoon and get cooler at dusk. Which is fine, I think I will get more than enough sun in the Galapagos. I just hope to return with at least some skin left as many of you know what happened to my legs in Hawaii after surfing for a couple hours. For those of you how do not, basically I had blisters from my butt you my ankles. I would not recommend that the day before your flight out, not the most comfortable. But hopefully I will learn from my mistakes.

ttly