Life. Is. Grand.

Pic 1: At a bar called, The Boot- was pretty stoked to see a Mississippi tag
Pic 2: Me and Carley
Pic 3: With some of my host family in Centro Histórico
Pic 4: Plaza Grande
Pic 5: Me with Pam and Carley

I have been sitting at Coffee Toffee all day (pushing 11 hours now) “studying” with 4 other friends. No, I actually have gotten a good bit done, but ready to take a break and write about the daily happenings in Quito. I stayed in town this weekend, after realizing just how much work I had to do. It’s been a great weekend: productive, but still fun.

Yesterday I went to get my haircut and colored, which it is was in dire need of (guys, you can fall asleep right now). This was quite the event. I was kind of nervous because it is difficult explaining what you want done in Spanish. I kid you not, I had 5 different people throughout the entire process. I didn’t even know that there were 5 stages to getting your hair cut, that’s right… there’s not. I had two people highlighting my hair. At one point it felt like they were back there (behind my head) trying to solve some complicated math problem, counting stuff, I don’t even know. This did not ease my nerves, but what’s the worst that could happen? I didn’t even try to explain wanting layers, because they tend to have crazy layers here that look like a mullet. I talked to Molly just before I left to get my hair cut, and she advised me not to return to the US with a mullet. Always good advice. All in all, everything turned out fine. (Okay, guys I’m done with the hair talk, you can wake up now.)

The piropos are out of control. I think I mentioned piropos in an earlier blog, but they are basically catcalls from guys. It is so incredibly annoying. Guys call out, just about anything, as you walk by. Today, as my friend and I walked by, this guy dramatically acted like he got hit by cupid’s arrow. No, seriously. Ugh. Sooo tired of it. We all are.

The cab drivers always provide entertaining conversations. Whenever I take a cab by myself I strike up a conversation. It helps my Spanish, plus I have learned a lot about Ecuador by talking with them. I like to ask them about politics, how much they like or dislike Rafael Correa (the president of Ecuador), their favorite city, etc. They like to talk about things like if I am married or not, almost every cab driver asks. I’ve become a very good liar. It’s so much easier to say that I’m married, than to deal with the questions that follow if I say I’m not... blah blah BLAH.

Well, classes are rollin’ right along. It’s been a very laid back semester until now. Apparently the teachers like to wait until the end to lay it all on us. Although that might be a good thing, because I don’t think I could have cranked out some of these papers at the beginning of the semester. Maybe my Spanish is improving after all!

I went bowling last night. It was my friend, Paul, who made it his mission to beat me since he knew I was in a bowling league back at home. Little did he know that in my bowling league it is more about hanging out than the bowling. I got a 94. Needless to say, he accomplished his mission.

Today I was listening to the radio on the internet and ‘Bring it on Home’ came on by Little Big Town. Let’s just say it got me excited to come home.

I wrote in my journal for quite a while today. It’s pretty neat to reflect back on the semester. Here’s a little snippet of what I wrote (it was an 11 page entry!):

-I have learned to be more than just content with my life, but to be truly happy.
-I have learned that you just have to open your eyes to see how beautiful the world is; it’s in the little things.
-I have learned that I can be tough as nails when I need to be; while at the same time my heart is more tender than I thought.
-I have learned that sometimes you just have to jump. (Deciding to go back to school, choosing Ecuador, etc.)
-I have learned to lean on God in all situations.

Factoids:
1. The highest point in Ecuador is Chimborazo. The CIA World Factbook says: due to the fact that the earth is not a perfect sphere and has an equatorial bulge, the highest point on the planet furthest from its center is Mount Chimborazo not Mount Everest, which is merely the highest peak above sea-level. (I love that it talks about Mt. Everest and says ‘merely’, haha!)
2. Ecuador has only won one gold medal (1996) and one silver medal (2008) in the Olympics, both in speed walking- this is from Wikipedia: Ecuador has competed in 11 Summer Games. They have never competed in the Winter Games. The nation from South America won its first Olympic medal when Jefferson Pérez won the gold medal in the men's 20 km walk.

Things I am excited about for when I get back State-side:
1. Seeing everyone! Ahh, I can’t wait!
2. Family dinners and Mama’s cookin’- specifically Fried Chicken and Chess Pie
3. Driving my car (which of course includes jammin’ out with the windows down)
4. The Barn
5. Waterskiing
6. Bud Light
7. Grandview Café
8. My Bed
9. Not having piropos as you walk down a street
10. Hot showers
11. Being a normal 26 year old, and not having to check in with my host mom
and last, but most definitely not least
12. Not having to eat soup before every meal!

I hope everyone had a nice weekend! See y'all in 3 weeks and 6 days :)

Never in My Life

Never in my life… I keep saying these four words, followed by something like “did I ever imagine I would be seeing/doing this.” I recently asked myself “Can you have an overload of awesomeness?” I decided you can’t. Why limit your ‘happy-meter’? Heck, I’ve been breaking the gosh darn happy-meter for a while now.

My Mama and Bill came to visit me in Ecuador. Even they will admit it was not on their top 10 list of places to visit (and I think that’s putting it nicely). Ah hem, well, well, well… once again does Ecuador surprise :)

The first two days they were here, we went to this hacienda that was one hour south of Quito. As we were getting close to the hacienda, I was starting to think ‘Where in the world did Mom book us to ride horses for two days?’ But, how silly of me to doubt, for even a second, my mom’s incredible knack for finding the little gems. This hacienda was simply beautiful and had been in the same family for five generations. It was in an absolutely gorgeous setting, and it felt like it was in the middle of nowhere (quite frankly, my favorite places are in the middle of nowhere). For two days, we rode horses and it was incredible. Breathing the fresh air, seeing Ecuador in such a great way, riding horses, eating good food, and enjoying the chit chat with the owner of the hacienda and his wife... all so cool. Bottom line: awesomeness.

After our hacienda excursion, we headed to the Galápagos Islands. I had been just two weeks before, but we had stayed in hotels. This time, we were taking a four-day cruise to do the island hopping. Holy Smokes. It was still the good ole same Galaps I had come to know and love, but it was completely different traveling by boat. We saw 7 islands in 4 days, so needless to say it was go, go, freakin-go. Let’s get straight to the highlights.

1. Rambo snorkeling- that’s what they kept calling it. There were about 12 of the 74 passengers that decided to do the hardcore, current sweeping, advanced swimmer, deep water snorkeling. We saw beautiful fish, starfish, turtles, and more.
2. The Hike around Española- we did a 3-hour leisurely hike around Española, one of the islands. It was so enjoyable to take our time and take it all in. Here we saw lots of marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies (babies too!), albatrosses, some other birds that I’m already forgetting the names of, crabs, and sea lions. We then took a moment to sit down and soak it all in. Breathtaking.
3. Stargazing- one night (because it wasn’t a clear night every night) we went up on the sun deck and the guides explained a lot of the constellations to us. There were a few things that made this incredible… the obvious is that we were on the boat in the middle of the ocean, which made it really dark and easier to see the stars. As my eyes were adjusting to the darkness, more and more stars kept coming out. The second thing that made this truly incredible, is that being on the equator, we could see the constellations from BOTH the southern and northern hemisphere. It blew. my. mind. We were looking at the big dipper, Orion’s belt AND the southern cross at the same time! This is one of my top 3 favorite moments in Ecuador thus far.
4. Snorkeling at Isabella- we went snorkeling for a second time, at Isabella Island. Once again, saw all sorts of stuff, literally thousands of fish, about 3 sea turtles, 1 sting ray, 1 eagle ray, 3 penguins…. yes, penguins, AAAND a white-tip shark. I had seen a hammerhead shark, but that was when I was on the boat, but this time I was actually in the water with it. Sooooo cool!

Basically, the entire trip was remarkable, or if you like the bottom line summary: awesomeness. We had such a blast!

Moving on from the highlights and on to ‘Em’s deep thoughts for the day.’ ☺ There were several times when I couldn’t help but think of the ever-useful analogy of the wind-being-like-God/the Holy Spirit analogy. You can’t see it, blah blah, but you know He/it’s there. On this Galápagos trip, I kept thinking of parallels or other examples for this analogy. It’s like the ocean. There is so much in the ocean that you don’t even think about, but you know is there. Even as I would lift my head out of the water to holler at someone that a turtle was below me or something, at the moment I lifted my head out of the water, I would forget about all the fish and wildlife that was below me. I would lift my head out of the water for 4 seconds and ‘forget.’ Come on, Em. My second and last example, to try and keep this shorter, is the stars. Living in Quito or Columbus, Ohio, you don’t see very many stars because of the city lights. I know there are more out there, but I don’t think too much about it. I had never in my life (see, there I go again)… I had never in my life seen so many stars…. soooo many stars. God must have been drilling this point in my head over the past few days: even though you can’t always see or feel that He is there, He is. It’s so simple, but can be hard to remember sometimes.

As my mom and I discussed a few times on the trip, there really is something spiritual about being in nature and seeing things so beautiful and grand.

God really outdid Himself with the Galápagos.

Whelp, this lengthy blog was the best I could do at summarizing the past week. Starting tomorrow I really need to light a fire under my tail and get some serious work done. The end of the semester is quickly approaching and I think I will actually have to put in some serious work! Goal for the next 3 days: write a 10-page paper. It’s game time.

Gorgeous Galápagos

Pic 1: Me with some giant tortoises
Pic 2: Hannah, Amber, Pam and I in front of the 2nd largest crater/volcano in the world
Pic 3: Iguana
Pic 4: Last night... just arrived to San Cristobal
Pic 5: Last day... a beach at San Cristobal

I just got back from a trip to the Galápagos Islands with my entire program. If you’re like me, I didn’t know much about them until I found out I was going (some people would probably want to punch me about now…. don’t worry, I have come to love, appreciate, and have found a new favorite place in this world). Anyway, I will give those of you, who are like me and don't know much about the Galápagos, a few highlights from my travel book to paint a picture of the world that I just got to experience.

Lonely Planet says “Nowhere else can you engage in a staring contest with wild animals and lose. You can’t help thinking you’ve stumbled upon an alternate universe, some strange utopian colony organized by sea lions- the golden retrievers of the Galápagos- and arranged on principles of mutual cooperation…. The islands have taken on a mythological status….. You don’t have to be an evolutionary biologist or an ornithologist to appreciate one of the few places left on the planet where the footprint of the human presence is kept to a minimum.”

We visited 4 islands in 5 days. It was go, go, go the entire time…. and let’s just say I’m still worn out. In my anthropology class we discussed the Islands a good bit. Everything about the Islands is to make the least amount of impact as possible. Even if you are Ecuadorian, you can’t just move there. You have to marry someone from the Islands (we were all on the look out for Mr. Romeo while we were there, so we could move!) and you have to be given special permission to study there, and it is only temporary. There are concerns about the increase in tourism, but at the same time, that is the number #1 moneymaker by a landslide. In the 1990’s there were about 60,000 tourists annually and in 2008 it has gotten up to 180,000. (I’d be curious to see what Disney World does in 1 day.) Anyway, I’m digressing…. bottom line: it is a fine line that they are teetering with.

Okay, on to the fun stuff. We went snorkeling several times. While snorkeling, I swam with schools of fish, including the blue and yellow fish (Dory from Finding Nemo), a stingray, a penguin, and a sea lion (saw tons of these on a beach on one island). At one point, a few of us swam over to this small little islet. White sandy beaches, gorgeous water, basically paradise… then this Sea Lion and her little baby came up on shore. Our guide said the baby was no more then 3 or 4 days old. At one point, I just laid down on the sand, and tried to take it all in….. it was complete and pure bliss. I can’t tell you how many times I had to remind myself that everything was real. I thought I had either A) died and gone to heaven or B) was about to wake up from a dream.

We took relatively small boats from one island to another. There were 10 of us on my boat. Most of the rides were about 3 hours. At one point we found a pod of dolphins. I would guess there were about 50 dolphins. We approached them slowly and were following them for about 5 minutes. It was spectacular. A few days later, we saw what appeared to be water coming up from a whale’s blowhole. Once again, on the boat, we slowly approached the whale, and finally got pretty darn close to it. Amaaaazing.

On top of it all, I had the best time with my (relatively) new friends. We all just let loose and had a ball. Practically every time we sat down for a meal, I would laugh so hard I would be crying and my cheeks would hurt. So. Much. Fun.

This weekend, I need to get some much needed homework done, and then Mom and Bill will be here on Tuesday!!!