Gear from Black Friday

After far too much shopping, I now have a lot of the gear I need for my adventure! As many things as there are to hate about Black Friday (materialism, minimum wage workers forced to work on the holiday, cold, day of thanks followed by day of spending, deaths), it does help easy the burden on things you really were planning on buying.

May not look like much, but this stuff is crucial for the next five months

Pack- $100, saved 15%

I will be LIVING out of this baby! We only saved about 15% here, but also received a $20 off of a $100 purchase at Dick's Sporting Goods that might come in handy later. At this time of year, there were no sales on any packs. Comparable packs are priced up to $300, with $175 being common, so still a good find. The best part is my brother needs this too for his huge Boy Scout trip, so we'll get our money's worth out of it.

Sleeping bag- $20, saved 60%

So glad I found a small one! I got quite lucky with this one too. We couldn't find the price, couldn't find a sales associate, couldn't find a price, finally went up to the cash register just to check the price, were shocked at how low it was so we bought it on the spot! Special thanks to the cashier at Sports Authority who gave us a coupon since ours had expired the day before.

Steripen- $40, saved 50%

This UV light creating purifier is what I will use this for all my water abroad. Filters like people often use here in Minnesota aren't strong enough, and with this deal iodine tablets would be more expensive (and gross!). My mom found this one for me, the last one!

Water Bottle Kit- $0!

I grabbed this for the 1 liter nalgene, but it came with all sorts of fun perks as well. It contains a whistle/compass, basic poncho, emergency blanket the size of a deck of cards, and a flashlight. Keep reading if you want to hear the story of how it was free.

Headlamp $0! 

Could be a bit better quality and it needs batteries, but you can't beat free! Thanks go out to my fun cousin Cassie for coming with for this one, and my aunt for the coupon.

Total Spent: $160 Total Saved: $140
A great few days of shopping! most of my expensive items are purchased, but I do still need boots and medications.

For those that are curious about my trip to Herberger's, keep reading to hear about how I got the headlamp and the water bottle for absolutely nothing...

Restaurant Review- Chimborazo

For my birthday, my roommates and I went to an Ecuadorian Restaurant called Chimborazo. This was a wonderful little glimpse into the food I will be eating abroad, and overall a great experience at a charming restaurant. The name Chimborazo comes from a volcano in Ecuador, the highest point of the center of the earth.

Mt. Chimborazo. From tourismplacesworld.blogspot.com

Located in Minneapolis, this restaurant was not a bustling Mexican food joint, but a small building attached to the owner's home. I couldn't quite decide if the dim lighting and un-american wall paneling was intentional to contribute to the ambiance, or if it was genuinely simple. Either way, I absolutely loved this authentic place. We sat  in an intimate corner by the window which was adorned with multicolored, thick cloth that looked as if it came straight from South America. On the walls there were simple 4 by 6 pictures of people and places in Ecuador. The kitchen was right behind the bar, so I was able to peak in there through the half wall, which was quite fun.

The owner of the restaurant is also the chef, and he grew up in the Ecuadorian Highlands. I was a little disappointed that our waitress wasn't Hispanic, but her excellent performance quickly made up for that setback. And according to my severely under trained ears, she seemed to pronounce everything correctly. Maybe it was just the magic of the place, but I might say that she was the best server I have ever had. (Although Kayla from Bakers Square will always be my favorite). This waitress gave excellent suggestions and descriptions (multiple times) of the unique foods. As my roommates and I are still embarrassingly young and inexperienced, we struggled heavily with figuring out how to split the bill and factor in the tip. (I of course  had a coupon as well to add complexity). She was unbelievably patient with all of this, and overall quite helpful.

The food was so much more different than anything I had ever tasted, but I'm no expert on food so I won't get into this too much. The best part was the variety, there were so many new things on my plate to try. I had some rice in the form of a patty with an extremely delicious egg on top of it (these are two staples in my poor diet now, so it was comforting to remember they are staples everywhere), una ensalada, some chorizo (sausage), and my new favorite food...llapingachos. This was some patty with mashed potatoes, cheese, spices, and heaven all mixed into one. I wish I could be more descriptive, but I know I won't do them justice. All I can do is suggest that you take me to either Chimborazo or another Ecuadorian restaurant in the cities to try them yourself.

This is taken right from Chimborazo's website. The llapingachos are in the upper left hand  picture, front and center.
I also had the pink soda, straight from Ecuador! 

My only regret from this experience is that I didn't put myself out there more to get to know this great place. I wish I had gone up to the chef and thanked him in my broken Spanish. I wish I had walked over to the kitchen to observe and not just peered across the room. Hopefully this will be a learning experience so once I am in Ecuador and Peru, I will be a little more inclined to live in the moment and take advantage of every opportunity I see. Seize the day, life is far too precious and short.

Ca-Ching

Thank you for reading! This post is meant to help you understand some of the logistical stress I am feeling. Specifically, money for all that I will be doing in the next 10 months.

I know foreign travel is generally expensive, but I do have some complicatedish things that add additional costs occurring at the same time

• Gear- I need a fancy schmancy sleeping bag, a personal UV light using water purification system, a big ol' bag, sturdy shoes (all I own are Toms and flip flops), various preventative medications and probably some more expensive gear. 
• Flights- I need to find my way from home to Ecuador, and from Peru home. Also, in Peru, I'll need to pay for a flight in and out of some deep part of the Amazon.
• Tuition-This is an obvious one, I need to give Carpe Diem a very large sum of money for my endeavors. 
• Credits- I haven't been fully enlightened as to what this fee is, but all I know is that if I want to receive college credit for my trip, I need to fork over $927 to Portland State University. (And this is in addition to the tuition of my program).
• Volunteering- United Planet is a wonderful organization, but they are quite pricey. The cost of my time with them is at bare minimum $2600. 
• Random four day gap/Excursion- I'll talk about this at some other point, but I will be needing to find food shelter and hopefully a reputable place to chill for 4 days, más o menos...but that means an expensive touristy thing.  One option I have is the Galapagos Islands! ...which will cost me another two grand. For about a fourth of that price, I could do a little rainforesty trip, but I'll already be doing stuff similar to that later on in my trip
• Summer courses- Since I'm just crazy, I will be needing to pay a chunk of money to North Dakota State University while I'm still abroad. This includes tuition and room and board for full time summer courses in linguistics I will be taking once I return.
• Car- This cost pains my quite a lot. Once I return to Minnesota, I will need to buy a car so I can go back to my life of working and volunteering. The one I currently use now is a blessing from my parents, and so it is now my younger brother's turn to benefit from it. 
• Minor things- Food, communication, public transportation, touristy purchases etc

As you can tell, this is stressful because there's just so much to pay for and think about. I currently work minimum 30 hours a week, and have been since May. Come January through August I will suddenly have absolutely no income. I have of course applied for a bunch of scholarships, but I will not hear back from them until I have already paid and am in Ecuador. Neither of my Bethel scholarships will apply towards any of the things mentioned above. 

Any help in any way would be greatly appreciated. If you have a really compact sleeping bag you won't be using this winter, might be interested in buying my Steripen from me in May, would be willing to pay me $20/ hour for babysitting (or $8, I'd do that too), know a great car dealer, have a coupon for probiotics, or simply want to donate, it would be so unbelievably appreciated. Absolutely all monetary gifts that I received will be used for my volunteer work, and thus are tax deductible. You can donate securely through Google Checkout by clicking on the donate button in the upper right hand corner of my blog. Please leave a comment or email me if you feel called to help, or maybe just want to learn more! Thank you!

This post is defiantly more negative than I'm sure you're hoping to spend your time reading, but I hope it helps you reflect on the dedication I have and need for this trip and the complicity of it all. Thank you for letting me selfishly mope about my financial stresses. I am unbelievably blessed to have these opportunities and the resources (even in the form of loans) to complete them. While sympathy and aid is appreciated, I do know that I am so very fortunate and do not deserve or require anyone to do the hard parts of this for me.

Note: In order for your donation to be tax deductible you must donate directly through United Planet 

Qué es Carpe Diem?

I want to tell you a little bit about my organization, since its is quite a unique way to do study abroad. I'll try and keep my opinion out of this post as much as is possible for me, and then later I will talk about why these aspects are so important to me.

Carpe Diem Education, or "Seize" as my dad like to call it, is a study abroad organization offering college credit through Portland State University that leads traveling, group oriented, 3 month long, service based trips throughout the world. So to break that down...

Carpe Diem- is a Latin phrase that means "Seize the Day." It is also the motto of my beloved TOMS! I frequently shorten this Carpe, or occasionally CD.

Portland State University- Carpe is not a Portland State run program, but there is the option of receiving college credit through PSU. Upon completion of the courses, one can receive a transcript from PSU. These credits are actually optional, because we are not taking classes. To receive credit for the learning experiences, there are papers to write upon returning to the states. This way, instead of sitting inside writing a paper and looking out a window at a beautiful new country, the student can live the new culture to the fullest and the spend the boring time back in their home country.

Traveling-This organization is so unique because students get to travel throughout multiple countries instead of sitting in one foreign university for the majority of the time. For my particular program, we will start in Quito, Ecuador. We will travel to different places in Ecuador and staying in different locations, and then head to the neighboring country of Peru. Here we will also be traveling, and ending at Machu Picchu!

Group Oriented- All of these exciting endeavors are done as a group with a maximum of 12 students. The South America semester is quite popular, and so I anticipate 12 to be an accurate number. Each group has two leaders fluent in the native language and experts on travel. This way of organizing a study abroad trip makes it less of a complete cultural immersion, because you are not tossed in alone with the locals. On the other hand though, it makes it so you have a great opportunity to build relationships and be apart of a community.

Service Based- This seems to be the core of everything that Carpe stands for. I wish I could describe for you in great detail what types of service the South America semester holds, but that is something you will have to look out for in my blog!

Read more about my program on Carpe Diem's website

My Adventure 101

Thanks for checking out my blog! I am going to South America in January 2013 and this blog is meant to be a compilation of some background information of what exactly I'll be doing, predeparture thoughts, and stories from abroad.

As I am interested in service and Spanish, I am going to Ecuador and Peru for almost five months, mostly to study abroad. First, I will be volunteering at a speech therapy institution in Ecuador, and then I will join a group of other students for a study abroad experience. We will be traveling around Ecuador and Peru, learning about the culture and language, while serving with a wide variety of organizations. I'll end my trip with a hike to Machu Picchu, then come home in May to write papers in order to receive college credit for  my adventure.

I am so excited to tell you more details of my programs and plans, and I hope that you will enjoy reading about my adventures!