First and foremost, my phone number is now +61 435 237 870
 
First Days
It would be unlike me to have a smooth start to my PhD. My first flight was delayed which meant that my layover in Texas was really short. And normally I don’t mind short layovers but Texans took “everything is bigger in Texas” and applied it to their airport–the train ride from one terminal to the other felt like 20 minutes and 20 minutes during a 40 minutes layover felt like forever. My long-haul flight was in the process of boarding when I arrived at the gate. 
 
I’ll skip the details of a 16 hour flight and just leave you with one note you can interpret however you’d like: I am never having kids. 
 
Despite multiple gate agents and a customer service rep assuring me that a 90 minute layover was plenty of time to get my bags, clear customs, re-check my bags, go thru security again, and get to my gate, 90 minutes was not enough time. Now, instead of a direct flight to Darwin, I got to fly 2 hours west to Adelaide and then 4 hours north to Darwin. I won’t bore you with any of these details but instead will just encourage to use layovers as an excuse to drink wine at random airport bars. When I arrived in Darwin almost 48 hours after I left Minocqua, the first thing I noticed was that dry-cedar smell (think of a sauna). Actually, the first thing I noticed is that Australians don’t pronounce the “r” in Darwin. 
 
The next day I went to the University and was given a brief tour, a student ID card, and was shown my desk. I also received no less than 30 emails about registration, payment, schedules, onboarding, etc. At some point I left and went to the shopping center to buy sunscreen, get a new phone plan, and open a bank account so I can get paid. 
 
High on my to-do list was to find housing for after my hotel reservation ended on Friday. A lab mate had offered a spare room in their house for me for a few weeks while I looked for housing but I had failed to respond in time and someone else had already claimed it. After many hours of looking online, I had sent a dozen emails to people leasing apartments and, at the recommendation of some lab mates, secured a short stay room at the International House Darwin, an apartment/dorm on campus for international students. I’ll be staying there until the end of the month. One cultural difference I’ve noticed is that American landlords always seem rushed to rent apartments, often lining up the next tenant before the current one even moves out. Australian landlords don’t seem to have this urgency and will sit on a vacant unit for weeks. 
 
Jet lag hit early in the evening and I passed out by 7 after briefly watching the local news. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was watching an SNL skit.
 
Settling In.
I’ve been working for a few days and my job is surprisingly similar to what I did at UW–lots of reading, writing, math, and science (and obviously a boat load of emails). Two of the more interesting work related activities scheduled for later this month are a 3 day “First aid in remote areas” course and a 2 day “4x4 off-roading” safety course. Between these two courses I’ll learn everything from how to treat snake bites, how to make a splint for broken bones, how to change a tire (or tyre as they call it), and how to get a truck out of a watering hole. I also have my first day in the field later this month. In the prep for that, I’ve been informed that every sampling team has a “watch person” whose sole job is to keep an eye out for croc. Although ive been informed that streams are “probably safe,” just like how in the ocean you “probably wont get stung by jellyfish” if it’s the dry season (in the wet season you “surely” will get stung by jelly fish).
 
Getting around has actually been a little difficult as I don’t have a car, don’t have a bus pass (yet) and just recently bought a bike. It is worth noting that while biking 10 miles in Madison is not that big of a deal, biking 10 miles here in the middle of the afternoon when it is 90 degrees is miserable. I also learned the hard way to pay attention to the scale bar of the map or look at the actual distance form point A to point B instead of just saying “that doesn’t look too far” because that is how I ended up biking about 20 miles in the heat. With a bike, it is actually pretty easy to get around the city. That being said, people usually find a place to spend the day by about 11 and don’t leave until after 4 because the middle of the day is so hot that commuting is unbearable. 
 
While I hit the ground running with work and have been very busy getting started, I have had some time to myself over the weekend and during the evenings. On my first weekend I spent one day hiking through a coastal reserve nearby the campus and then biking to the city center. On the following day I went to the annual aboriginal art fair and one of the night markets with some of the people in the same program as me. My evenings have been rather busy settling in–getting groceries, looking for housing, dealing with this or that, etc. Although I have had some time to spend at the beach watching the sunsets. 
 
 
 Rocky Terrain
This all has been a very new experience for me–It is the first time in my life that I’ve felt completely on my own in every aspect. There are no friends from high school who also decided to go to CDU, there are no family members who live here or happen to have a friend here in case of an emergency, and I am not part of an exchange program where they keep you in a bubble and take care of everything for you in the background. There is also no foundation for me to work from–I don’t already have a place to live with pots and pans and a stocked pantry, I don’t have a car to help me get around or get supplies, and there’s not someone who is available 24/7 to help me with whatever I need.  In all honesty, this has made the first week rather difficult and will surely make moving into an apartment very difficult. Although to be fair to everyone involved, my own stubborn independence and hesitancy to ever ask for help certainly makes things more difficult than they would otherwise be. 
 
Buying a bike is a great example of this. I found a bike on Facebook market place and planned to pick it up at 6pm after touring an apartment 6 miles away at 5pm. I mapped it out and figured out that I could take the bus and it would take about 40 minutes. I didn’t have a bus pass yet so I figured I would get one on the way there. Turns out you can only get a bus pass at the interchange which was about 3 miles away so I hustled and walked the three miles to the interchange just to discover that the interchange closes at 5pm. Exhausted and sweaty and running late, I decided to bite the bullet and pay for an uber. I ended up buying the bike and begging the guy to refill my water bottle for me because I had drank all of it while walking the three miles. By the time I biked about 5 miles home, it was dark and I was dehydrated and starving and exhausted. I realized when I got home that despite getting a bike, it was still nearly useless because I didn’t have a lock. The next day I went back to the interchange to buy the card so I would have it in the future only to discover that the interchange was currently closed for maintenance and I couldn't buy the card there. 
 
Everything from getting groceries to getting around to figuring out how something works has been a long-winded story that usually could have been a lot simpler if I just had a car or bike or knew the Australian custom or knew someone who knew how that place worked. (Don’t even ask about my experience with the Australian DMV). I’ve had to get used to looking like the stupid tourist (Imagine me holding up the self checkout line at the grocery store, holding up a green pepper for the cashier to see, and asking “what is this?” (its called a capsicum)). At times it really feels like me against the world. Things always take longer than they would if I was back in the states and I usually end up sweaty and frustrated at one point in the process. It makes me have a lot more respect for international students, especially those who move somewhere with a language barrier. 
 
Onward and upward–things should only get easier.

On Classes
We started classes this past week at the university. We typically have class Monday thru Friday with ecology from 9-12 and Spanish from 2:30 to 5:30. On our lunch break, we usually spend about half an hour getting food and the remaining two hours studying and working on group projects at what we have named "Flat Bascom," a turf courtyard near the back of the university. If we have some extra time, we will make our way over to the sand volleyball court that overlooks the valley. Most days, we get to the university at 8:30 to finalize presentations or other assignments. I usually leave my house at 7:45am and get back around 6:30 pm, right around sunset. The days are long and busy and our professors have no problem making us work. When I get home I usually shower, work on homework, eat dinner with my host family at 8:30, do some more homework, and then go to bed. 
My ecology professors are named Joe and Cath. They started Ceiba back when they were in grad school at Madison and have been working on conservation efforts in Ecuador ever since. They have been running this study abroad program for the last twelve years. They are without a doubt the most passionate and genuine professors I've ever had. When we are traveling, they bring altitude tea, candy (to help with blood sugar and elevation), extra water, and food because they realize that we are college students and don't take care of ourselves. When we are in the field, they are like kids in a candy shop. All of the sudden one of them will yell stop to the buss driver, run out of the bus, pick up a plant, and run back into the bus with it to show us a new species or certain type of characteristic they told us about in class. So far we have been learning about general biodiversity and what type of abiotic factors influence biodiversity distribution, as well as tropical bird and plant species. 
During any free time we have in the evenings, we play volleyball or roam around Cumbaya. In true Wisconsin fashion, me and a few other students have found a brewery nearby that has a pool table, large benga games, good music, and a patio. We spend some of our less busy nights there. 

On Culture
Ecuador isn't that different from the US. They have cars and highways and electricity and WiFi (to a certain extent). But what they don't have are white people. I'm not in the majority here anymore and there are certain luxuries I didn't realize I had in the US that are not present here–safety being the most noticeable. Cumbaya is relatively safe. It has a crime metric similar to US cities of the same size. The most common crime is petty theft and the most common victims are white people. In one of our first days or orientation we were told all of these scams and rouses people would try to use on us to steal from us. They taught us how to prevent people from pickpocketing and what ares to avoid at night. Luckily I haven't been a victim yet. 
Being a minority has changed my perspective and also made me much more sympathetic towards women in the US. I never feel white safe when I am on the street. Street lights are no longer a source of light pollution but are now a safe haven on the street. Trees are now places people can hide and the source of long shadows that make the street feel less safe. Crowded busses are places where people can brush past you, stick their hand in your pocket and take your phone without you even thinking twice. Every person on the street isn't an extra set of eyes that could deter crime but instead a possible thief. When I walk down the street, sometimes I can feel people watching me. People will turn their heads as you walk by. I can hear people mutter "gringo" (a slang, possibly offensive, term for foreigner) as I sit on the bus. When you're a white male in the US, theres not that much going against you. But when you're a while male in Ecuador, the odds aren't in your favor. 

The Paramo
We had our first field experience this past Friday and Saturday in a type of environment call a Paramo. They are located mainly in the tropics–but don't let that fool you. They are not warm. At all. Located at over 10,000 feet on mountains, they are cold, wet, and very windy. When we were there, the temps were in the mid 30's. We wore rubber boots, pants, jackets, rain gear, hat and gloves. The clouds were low so visibility was not very good and it was constantly rain/misting while we were there. However, they can change from these conditions to 90 degrees and sunny in less than an hour. 
They can range from short grass or shrub lands to more developed forests, depending on the altitude. The environment is considered highly hostile for a few reasons. One is the large temperature range they experience and the high variability in the temperature. At so high up, they also have little atmosphere to block UV radiation so plants have adaptions to not absorb harmful levels of UV radiation but still absorb sunlight to photosynthesize. Even though it was cloudy and cold, many of us still got sunburned because of this.  While the ground is generally water saturated, the air gets very dry so plants have various methods of preventing excess water loss through evaporation. While we were there we did plant surveys and groudcover mapping to look at how grazing impacts the environments. We actually went to two different paramos. Cyambe-coca has been protected for quite a while and has had very little grazing pressure while Antisana has only recently banned grazing 6 years ago. Paramo soil has a water capacity of about 12 times that of normal soil so they tend to form lakes high up in the mountains. A lake in Antisan is used to supply water for Quito. With all of the grazing natural vegetation was replaces and soil was compacted. 

Up next
I booked a flight to Patagonia for spring break. This weekend we are going on a two day trip to Cotopaxi and Qulitoa. On Monday we leave for the northern coast for a week. 

The first few days here have been hectic! I arrived at about 2am on Wednesday and then spent the day with my host family running errands in downtown Quito. On Thursday and Friday I had orientation at USFQ where they talked with all of the international students about culture, the city and the university, health and safety while abroad, and what to expect in the next few months. 
 
On Saturday we went on a tour of downtown Quito and saw all of the  historic  churches (which all have a castle-like  appearance and are covered in gold on the inside), the presidential palace, and other historic monuments. After, we spent a few hours wandering around the few blocks near the university and walked around the mall (which actually houses some of the university classrooms, offices and rec spaces) across the street.

​On Sunday we went the Far East side of Quito and rode the Teleferico, a gondola that takes you  near the top of Pinchura, an active volcano. It is ten minutes long and takes you from 9000 feet to 12000 feet. From there we hiked the rest of the volcano to an elevation of over 14000. The hike was beautiful but consisted of rests about every 3 minutes to catch our breath. The high altitude made breathing extremely difficult. From the top you could see the city in the valley below and the mountains surrounding the city. From there we went to the Virgin of Quito, a giant aluminum statue of a virgin angel on a mountain int he middle of the city. The statue is a Catholic monument from when the church ruled the city the 1600s. We watched the sunset from here.

My host family is really nice and they all speak English, at least to a degree. I live with a mom, uncle, and son (19) in a quiet gated community about 3 miles from the university. The house and university are actually part of a much nicer suburb of Quito called Cumbaya (like the song). To get to school I take two different busses. If it is nice out, I walk downhill a mile and a half and then get on a bus and only take one bus. While I could do the same on the way home, I generally choose not to because the mile and a half walk would be uphill. While this generally isn't an issue for me, the city's elevation is already 9000ft so I get winded walking up a flight of stairs. 
 
The city itself is incredible with its views of mountains and volcanoes on all sides. Buildings are colorful and dogs walk around everywhere. Despite this, I am excited to leave in two weeks. The city is particularly unsafe for white people due to high rates of muggings and pickpocketing. During our orientation we spent a considerable amount of time learning how to protect ourselves and our belonging to prevent theft. They also taught us about the types of scams locals may try to use on us to kidnap or rob us. Generally, the city is safe, especially if you know what to look out for, allegedly. We were advised to never travel alone at might night, even by bus and to not use the busses after sunset. We were also taught how to identify certified cabs. Uber is the safest form of transportation after sunset. 

For the most part, all 21 students on the trip are great. We have already made  extensive use of the university sand volleyball court in-between classes and meetings, much to the amusement of the locals. 

I start actual classes tomorrow. We have class five days a week. From 9-12 we have ecology with our professors from Madison. Lunch/volleyball is from 12-2 and Spanish is from 2-5. Friday and Saturday we will be out of town visiting some national parks. We will be back in class for four days the following week but are leaving on Friday to go to a cloud forest on the northern coast.