Inside Student Blogs

Colleen Sikorski Quito, Spring 2012

Colleen Sikorski is a junior at Indiana University studying journalism, international studies and Spanish. She has been a reporter and editor for IU’s student newspaper The Indiana Daily Student. When she’s not busy reporting or going to class, she enjoys traveling, hiking, reading and spending time with friends. This is her first time south of the equator, but Colleen has traveled to Spain, Canada and Mexico previously. She is thrilled to be studying abroad in Ecuador and hopes to improve her Spanish, test her independence and discover an amazing new culture—and she can’t wait to write about it.

Colleen's Posts

• The final chapter: returning to the U.S.

  5/29/12 • (0)

  My last memory is watching the city lights and the Andes fade from view as our plane ascended into the clouds.

  Ecuador, Quito, Study Abroad, Travel

• Saying goodbye to Ecuador: surviving and living through 137 days abroad

  5/29/12 • (0)

  Nearly four-and-a-half months ago, I was freaking out as I was on the verge of moving to Ecuador.

  Ecuador, Quito, Study Abroad, Travel

• Ain’t that America: Backwards Culture Shock?

  5/15/12 • (0)

  I didn’t spend much time worrying about being thrown together with a bunch of random students from around the country before departure. But “Fellow Americans” are right up there with “zero personal space” on the What Causes The Most Culture Shock list.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Biking Cotopaxi: How I celebrated the World’s Greatest College Weekend in Ecuador

  5/14/12 • (0)

  So, of course, I wouldn’t stop talking about Little 5 to anyone in Ecuador. I was feeling a little homesick and wishing I were in Bloomington for the weekend. But chose the next-best option instead: I spent my Little 500 Saturday biking. Only this biking was down Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s second-tallest mountain at 19,347 feet.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Dolphins, Turtle sex, Sunburns — oh my! Galapagos Part 1

  4/30/12 • (0)

  The day before we left for the Galapagos, I woke up with some sort of stomach illness. I willed myself into feeling better, drank an entire jar of apple tea, and was on my way to the airport at 5:30 a.m.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Not a girl, not yet a woman: How my life became a Britney Spears song

  4/30/12 • (0)

  In my cultural anthropology class, we were talking about “youth” versus “adult”. Our teacher told us “youth” is defined as people who are not yet married – in Latin America, this automatically means you still live with your parents.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Safety in Quito: Learning to live in a big city

  4/30/12 • (0)

  We all got the student coordinator’s email about a month ago. Someone had been robbed at a taxi on the way home from a club most of us were at for a birthday party.

  Ecuador, Quito, Safety

• Dolphins, Turtle sex, Sunburns — oh my! Galapagos part 2

  4/29/12 • (0)

  On our final island, we met the IES Galapagos students. A lot of them love it, but none have internet in their homestays, and most don’t have running water or electricity.

  Ecuador, Galapagos Islands

• My life was so stressful that I fled to the beach: #studyabroadproblems

  4/02/12 • (0)

  The past month has been frustrating. I was fed up with 190-page reading assignments in Spanish and fed up with some host family issues. After three weeks of midterms and a sinus cold turned mutant lung disease, I needed to get to the Pacific.

  It was my turn to organize a weekend trip. And, really, there’s no better way to blow off some steam than heading to the beach.

  Ecuador, Quito

• An Ecuadorian Snow Day

  3/26/12 • (0)

  Today is a snow day, minus the snow. IES cancelled classes, and the city of Quito cancelled classes for all school children.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Life in the third world

  3/09/12 • (0)

  Divisions between first world and third world are a fuzzy line in my daily life. We live in north central Quito, the richest part of Ecuador. We live in the first world when we’re with our host families or at IES, which is in the heart of Quito’s financial district. I’ve had to deal with cold showers and go without internet for a day, but two months in it’s not even an issue.

  Ecuador, Quito

• McDonalds: the classiest restaurant in Ecuador

  2/29/12 • (3)

  I found one of the classiest McDonalds in the world. It’s in Quito on the corner of Amazonas and Naciones Unidas, just past Parque Carolina.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Welcome to the Jungle!

  2/28/12 • (0)

  I’ve been reading about the Amazon in children’s books since I was five. I was a devout Rainforest Cafe customer from the age of eight. I couldn’t believe we were actually going to the Amazon.

  Amazon, Ecuador, Quito

• The beach? In January? Yes, please!

  2/14/12 • (0)

  Two weekends ago I took a spontaneous vacation with seven other gringos to the beach. In one trip, we had the time of our lives after about 30 minutes of planning it.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Putting the “study” in “study abroad”

  2/06/12 • (0)

  Before I departed for Quito, I got a lot of advice about classes abroad from returned friends and friends who are abroad this semester. I was in for a rude awakening the first day of classes.

  Ecuador, Quito

• How I (nearly) climbed a 15,670-foot mountain

  1/23/12 • (0)

  Saturday, seven fellow IES students and I decided to go on “an easy hike for beginners” with the Club de Andinismo (club for people who like to hike/climb the Andes).

  Ecuador, mountain climbing, Quito, Teleferico

• From a college apartment to a host family

  1/13/12 • (0)

  In Ecuador, I live with a host family. My host mother (also known as my southern hemisphere mother) is a widow named Anita. She calls me ¨gringita¨. Literal translation: little white girl.

  Ecuador, Quito

• Overcoming culture shock

  1/09/12 • (0)

  When I told people I’m studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador, I got a lot of strange reactions and unsolicited advice.

  Culture Shock, Ecuador, Quito