Getting the hang of it

With one week down I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of living in a big city.  While the buses and taxis seemed overwhelming at first, I've learned how to start getting around the city with out much trouble.  It's not as difficult as I thought it would be.

After my first week of classes I'm very excited to study at the Universidad de San Francisco Quito.  The professors are not only very knowledgeable, but are also very welcoming and engaging for us exchange students.  The university has done a great job of getting us acclimated and comfortable with not only the campus, but Ecuador as well.  I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to go to such a prestigious school.

Ecuador is a great country to travel and explore.  From vast mountain ranges to peaceful ocean shores it has just about everything.  Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit one of the highest active volcanoes in the world.  Cotopaxi can be seen at a distance in Quito, but as our guide was driving us up to it we could not have imagined how massive it is.  Quito is already at a high elevation, but as we were hiking up Cotopaxi we reached over 4,500m.  This made it very difficult to breath so we could not make it all the way up with out spending a whole day doing so.  None the less, we made it far enough to reach the red dirt from the lava.