I've been here for three weeks?!

So I didn't even have any idea how long I have been gone for until adam brought it up last night. Today officially marks the end of week three. Its surreal. I still sometimes don't believe I'm here. You're sitting in a hot sweaty classroom one minute then the next your eating lunch with some of your best friends on a balcony over looking all of cumbaya (suburbia of quito) and the surrounding mountains/volcanoes. I'm loving 5 of my classes right now. The sixth one (art history) is still confusing to me cause i wasn't signed up for it on the first day so i'm still adjusting to that, but the other classes that i signed up for have no issues. Interestingly enough, my two favorite classes aren't even in spanish. Volcanology which happens to be in english is amazingly interesting to me and it makes me want to study geology full time. I read enough geology on my free time to keep that dream on hold... for now at least. Who knows with grad school and whatnot. And my second favorite is Italian. Yeah, I'm learning Italian in Spanish. It's really not as confusing as it sounds, I promise. It even improves my spanish quite a bit. I've gotten one grade back so far and I did really well and way better than the class average. What I miss most about home right now is having a guitar that I can play at any time and knowing people that play tennis. Biggest difference I've noticed thus far? Well to explain this its kind of difficult but I'll  give it a shot. My host mom sat me down on Wednesday I think (sometime this week) and was letting me know about the US Syria relations. Which I've always know about the conflicts but apparently the US is getting more and more serious. She had a sad look on her face and showed a lot of emotion for me but the weirdest thing about this to me is, it feels like the US is always "going to war." So to me this doesn't feel like a big deal. Then I imagined what would her son feel like in the US if Ecuador was having tough relations with another nation and thinking about going to war or whatnot? Then I thought back about the US perspective and realized how desensitized I am to war. Its a bit disheartening and sickening at the same time. So I guess just reacting to certain situations is the biggest difference to me. But on a lighter note, we all went out to dinner last night and went out to the mariscal and i met some pretty cool ecuadorians. It was pretty fun for the most part. This afternoon I'm just hanging out and working on some homework and watching the US open in Spanish. I miss johnny mac commentating and talking about murray's "injuries" but I'm over it. I've been watching a lot of football especially the Ecuadorian and Italian leagues. Here's to hoping federer returns back to his god-like self. And lastly, sorry I know this is the longest post ever. I just wanted to say thanks to all my friends and family back home for supporting me thus far through my journey. Its been an amazing experience and I hate to admit it but my advisers/counselors were right. The good days on study abroad blow any day back home out of the water and the bad days on study abroad feel like the entire weight of the world  is on your shoulders. Thanks to all! Talk to you soon.