The Ecovía is one of the three major bus lines that run down the length of Quito. It's the one that is closest to my house, and is quite close to the IES Center and PUCE (the university where we can take classes). For me and many others in the program, the Ecovía is super convenient, and at 25 cents a ride, quite cost-effective. 

During the first week of orientation, a couple of my new friends and I heard there was a street in the center of Beijing where vendors sold strange snacks, such as scorpions, out of food stands. We all agreed to try them together, however bad weather, the cold going around our dorm, and other scheduling conflicts forced us to keep postponing our trip. This past Saturday we were blessed with the first under 100 AQI day, free time, and good health all around so we decided to accomplish our self-imposed challenge. 

Although it's been an exhausting week, chock-full of new classes, changing classes, and getting a little lost, even the worst day wasn't all that bad. That day I was twenty minutes late (after running around like a mad person for my sociology class at the Université de Nantes, which ended up being a fifteen-minute walk from where I initially thought it was) and soaking wet - because it was raining, of course.

Last time you heard from me I was stressing over my lost luggage, taking pictures of pretzels in the aisles of the Tesco supermarket, and attempting to figure out how the tube works. Well, a lot has happened in the two weeks since my last post and I’m happy to say that I have become quite skilled at crossing the busy London streets and finding my way by Tube (with help from the lifesaving app CityMapper). That’s not all that I’ve accomplished though!