Quito, Ecuador

This is the view out my window at night

And this is the view out my window during the day. I´m staying in an apartment in Quito with my host family: Cecilia and her daughter Patricia. I had my first spanish lesson today and it went really well. I´m just going to take one week of classes to review everything I´ve forgotten. I´ll write more after I´ve done something exciting.

now the blog is official

Somehow a link to my blog ended up on the Worldwide Peace Corps Blog Directory. So anyone that found me through that site: hello! Now this blog is officially public. I'm leaving tomorrow for Ecuador, which should be a good warm up trip before I embark on my Peace Corps adventure. I will try to update this blog as much as I can during my trip and I'll be back in California April 3. Feel free to leave comments.

what I've been up to

I've been so excited since I found out I'm going to Fiji. This whole process from application to departure has taken so long, but now that it's February, I feel like I'm running out of time! My Dad and I decided to take our promised "trip to anywhere in the world that I want to go" before I leave for the Peace Corps. So we're going to the Galapagos Islands for two weeks in March (one of my friends described it as "every biology nerd's dream"). Being a world travel addict, I couldn't justify going all the way to Ecuador for just two weeks, so I'm staying for five weeks. That should get me back to California at the beginning of April, just in time for one month of working as many hours as I can while packing and getting rid of all the stuff I won't need for the next 2 years. But before I leave for Ecuador, the Peace Corps has a list of things for me to do: get a new "government" passport, write a new resume, write a five part "aspiration statement," and write a press release. I'm sure that once I finish all of that, they'll have another list form me.

Completely unrelated topic: the presidential primaries. I'm a little sad that I'm going to miss the election in November. I've had so much fun following the campaigns and elections for both parties. It's been so exciting. "They" talk about how the young people are more involved in this election than they have been ever before, and I can testify to that. Tomorrow is "Super Tuesday" and I can't wait to see how everything unfolds.