We spent our second day on San Cristóbal taking a field trip to three local spots along a road: El Junco Lake, La Galapaguera de Cerro Colorado, and Puerto Chino.

Our first stop was to El Junco Lake in the “highlands” 2,400 feet above sea level. (Compared to mainland Ecuador where highlands are 15,000 feet high and biodiversity means the most biodiverse spot on Earth, everything on the Galápagos sounds a bit underwhelming.) But my skepticism disappeared as soon as we got off the bus and saw this:

After a wonderful four weeks of learning Turkish, exploring the city, and establishing myself in Istanbul, I began the registration process at Bogazici University (pronounced Bo-ah-zi-chee — Turkish pronunciation is weird). Registering for classes in a university of 12,000 is different than registering for classes in a college of 2,000 students, I discovered. My registration process has been pretty ugly, so hopefully this will provide some insight for those of you arriving next semester!

One aspect of being in Berlin makes me feel like I haven’t left home: every encounter I’ve had with the locals I know (my hosts/the people who work at IES) and nearly every encounter with strangers has been positive. In Vermont I am used to smiling and waving at everyone because I know essentially everyone; cities have far more people and move much faster. Regardless, even amidst people rushing around absorbed in their days, I’ve noticed friendliness and kindness from passersby.

Okay, so going into my first week of classes at one of the leading musical theatre conservatories in London, the theatre capital of world, you could say I was a little nervous. “Intimidated” would be also be accurate. At times, even “scared out of my wits” wouldn’t be pushing it too far. But with each passing day, I’m more and more convinced that choosing to study abroad at Mountview was the best decision I’ve ever made for myself.

Classes!

This week, classes at Universidad de Salamanca have started. I was busy trying out different classes, and today (add/drop deadline) I finalized my “horario.”

It’s been almost 2 months now since I’ve arrived in Quito–and I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. In a couple weeks, I’ll be at the halfway point of my time here, which is even crazier to think about.

On Saturday we took a field trip to the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall Museum with our “Chinese Metropolis” class.  The highlight was definitely the giant-mini Shanghai!