Now that I’m over two months into my semester abroad (crazy, right!), I wanted to talk about being part of a host family. My host family is made of my host mom and dad, who are about the age of my real mom and dad, as well as a host sister who is a year …
Category Archives: Daily Life
Trying Not to Get Hit by a Bus and Other Extreme Sports
A good public transportation system is on practically everyone’s Benefits of Living in a Big City list. It may even have a fighting chance for the number one spot. Being able to get where you want to go without having to drive yourself or walk is a huge bonus. As long as you get there …
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Food!! (& My Birthday)
Eating is hard. College students everywhere know what I mean. Meal prep, waking up for breakfast, consuming some sort of fresh fruit or vegetable, resisting the very strong urge to order take out every night, all of this is hard. It’s even harder to do abroad where 1) you have to be smarter with money …
The Key is Reciprocity
Part of my SIT study abroad program is getting the opportunity to travel throughout the country, and stay with host families of different cultures. The first of these trips was to the northern Chilean town of Putre, where I got the opportunity to stay with an Aymara family for several days. The Aymara people are …
Social Unrest – Let’s Talk
(I’m going to preface this by saying featured photos are NOT mine – they come from the newspaper El Comercio.) So I’m sure some of you are aware of what’s been going on in Ecuador recently, but in case you’re not, here are the basics: The federal government has been subsidizing gas for years, making …
Service Abroad
One of the classes I’m taking while in Ecuador is called “Service Learning”. Half of the class is about serving as a volunteer in an organization in the community, while the other half is a discussion on what doing volunteer work abroad is and should be about. The organization I chose to do my volunteer …
Getting Adjusted/ Hot Takes
Every time someone asks me about how my semester abroad is going I say, “so far so good.” As I’m currently typing this, classes start tomorrow so thus far, my first week has simply been a lot of “getting adjusted”. Getting adjusted has meant buying my own toilet paper because for some reason my 8 …
íshellan var mjög köld
After settling down, eating, and fully absorbing that we truly were spending the night in Iceland, there was a big decision to be made. Is it most sensible to stay put and rest up in preparation of the next day of travel? Is life telling us to seize the day and explore, even though we’re …
Rainy Season
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the rainy season is starting to wrap up! It may be a little too positive of a statement to say that rainy season is almost over, but the seasons are definitely starting to slowly change. During the whole month of August, the 15-day forecast …
Two Seasons by Vivaldi: “Rain”
Summer is ending for everyone in the US. Technically, it’s the end of summer here too, even though most of Ecuador is south of the equator. Actually, that means that the rainy season is upon us. Since Ecuador is on the equator, it doesn’t really have seasonal variation except in rainfall. It was kind of …
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