Ecuador in 10 hours...

Jeff and I are going to Ecuador from March 12-21 for our spring break trip. Our flight leaves in about 12 hours. A few people have asked me what our plan is for the trip, and basically we have no plan - we're going to fly into Quito and then go where the wind takes us (although we'll make a point to stay away from the Columbian boarder - things aren't looking good there). However, I thought I'd put down what we know right now and what a possible itinerary might look like.

Here's the short version for those of you not inclined to read the details:

Wednesday, March 12,
6:43am: Depart DC - COPA Airlines Flight CM489
10:42am: Arrive Panama City
11am-4pm: Explore Casca Viejo (Old Town) in Panama City
7:02pm: Depart Panama City - COPA Airlines Flight CM211
8:52pm: Arrive Quito
9pm: Taxi to Secret Garden Hostel, where we spend our first night.

Thursday, March 13-Thursday, March 20
Trek into Amazon Jungle, and/or
Trip to Otavalo or other Andes Mountain Sites, and/or
Trip to the Coast to see the beaches and eat sea food, and/or
Something else cool we hear about.

Thursday, March 20
Return to Quito - Spend night at Hostel Revolution

Friday, March 21
Wakeup-1pm: Explore Quito
4:11pm: Depart Quito - COPA Airlines CM828
5:56pm: Arrive Panama City
7:06pm: Depart Panama City - COPA Airlines CM488

Saturday, March 22
12:47am: Arrive in DC, take taxi home from Dulles


And now the longer version:

We're flying COPA airlines, and departing DC at 6:43 am Wednesday morning. (Which means we have to get a taxi to Dulles at 3am... yuck.) We take a 5 hour flight, during which we set our clocks back an hour to account for the time zone change, and arrive in Panama City at 10:42 am. We've got quite a long layover, so if we can't get on an earlier flight to Quito, we'll leave the airport.

We'll take a taxi from the airport to Casco Viejo - the old town in Panama City. We'll have most of the day to wander around, get some food, and enjoy the sites of this UNESCO World Heritage Site. To be safe, we'll probably head back to the airport by about 3:30pm or 4pm. We depart Panama City at 7:02pm. We then have a two hour flight to make it the rest of the way to Ecuador.

We arrive in Quito at 8:52pm on Wednesday evening. We'll take a taxi from there to the Old Town (another UNESCO Heritage Site), where we've booked our first night at Secret Garden Hostel (which only costs $20 a night for our own room).

That's as far as the planned itinerary goes. It's likely that on Thursday we'll spend our day wandering around Quito - acclimatizing to being at 10,000 ft. We then have about a week to do other things. A few possibilities we're interested in are: a trek to the Amazon rain forest in the eastern region of Ecuador, a trip to the mountain town of Otovalo on Saturday when there's an indigenous market, or a trip to the coast to see the beautiful Ecuadorian beaches and try the legendary sea food.

No matter what we do, we'll have to be back in Quito by Thursday, March 20th. That night we'll be staying at Hostel Revolution. On Friday, March 21st, our last day in Ecuador, we'll have the morning to see more of Quito and get some last souvenirs. We'll head to the airport around 1pm or so, and then we'll depart Quito at 4:11pm on Friday, March 21st.

We've got a two-hour flight and then we arrive in Panama City at 5:56pm. No leaving the airport this time, though, because an hour later we depart Panama City at 7:06pm. After a four-hour flight and adjusting our watches ahead an hour, we'll arrive in DC at 12:47am on Saturday, March 22nd. And that's it!

I'm not sure how much internet access we'll have while we're there, but if I don't get to post while I'm there, I'm sure I'll have lots to say after I get back!

Om Shanti Om

Today I had class (on a Saturday!) from 9am-3pm. The class is "Cross-cultural Communications" and it only meets twice this semester. I was worried it wouldn't be interesting and would be six hours of explaining that we live in a global world and we need to be accepting of other cultures - which I'm already pretty aware of. Lucky for me, it was more in depth and technical, so it was very interesting. It covered what basic descriptors of cultures are and went into specific examples. Before our next class on March 28th, I need to prepare a group paper and presentation on Central Asia, which includes India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc.



To get started on my research, I went to the second Bollywood Night with my friends. We watched Om Shanti Om, which was a hilarious movie. It is set in Bombay in the middle of the Bollywood film industry, and the main characters are all actors. The first half or so is set in the 1970's, and due to reincarnation, we get the same main actor in the second half, set in present day Bombay. It has a lot of cameos from famous Indian actors and actresses and makes fun of the movie industry pretty often. I really enjoyed it.

Web 2.0

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about web 2.0, but when I think about it, I’m not sure exactly what that includes. Sure, I know about some things - I have a blog (2 actually!), and I have my own website. But there’s more to Web 2.0, so I thought I’d try to figure out exactly what’s involved and what I think of it.

Wikipedia (arguably part of web 2.0 itself) defines web 2.0 as a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users.

So here is a list of some of these things are and what they do:

Blog: If you’re reading this, I guess you already know what a blog is, but I’ll explain anyway. A blog is basically a webpage where the content of the page is added by the user, with each individual entry as a new story. You can get a blog in a number of places, including Blogger, WordPress, BlogSavvy, and many others.

Wiki: A wiki is similar to a blog in that the content is supplied by the user(s). However, rather than just one series of entries, like a blog, a wiki can be made up of many pages, and users can make changes to existing content rather than just adding new things.

Collaborative Tagging (Folksonomy): These websites allow you to make your own tags for things and share those tags with others. These sites then have the ability to show everyone’s tags collectively, so you can see all sites tagged with the same word. Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia are a couple of examples of this type of site.

Google everything: Most of google’s applications allow you the opportunity to “share” – allow others to view your calendars, documents, website, maps, etc. So they’ve really jumped on board this wave.

Social Networking: These websites allow you to create a profile and then share that profile with people to whom you choose to link. The most famous of these for the younger generation are probably Facebook and MySpace. However, there are similar sites more focused on professional collaboration – like LinkedIn and Doostang. Social sites like facebook can be very convenient for keeping up with friends you don’t see often, since “newsfeed” shows recent changes people make to their profiles, and these often include pictures, events, and other information.

Second Life: I haven’t used second life personally, but it seems to be a 3D version of these other sites, and also one where you make up the information about yourself. You can have a house, a business, etc. Basically all of the things you have in real life, but without leaving your computer screen. The funniest joke I’ve heard about this concept is in Chuck Klosterman’s book “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs”.

I’m sure there is more to web 2.0, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

Geographic History

The other day I was talking to my grandpa and he mentioned that he had lived near Washington, DC for quite a while. I hadn't known that. Then I thought how in just 24 years, I'd already lived in a number of places and visited even more. I decided to make a google map to track my "geographic history". It's not complete, but I think I have a good start on it. I showed places that I've lived with little house icons and places I've visited just with blue markers. I did most things on the city level, but I could eventually be more specific and show addresses. If you're interested, feel free to check it out: Mariel's Geographic History

Economics Midterm

I took my first and only mid-term exam of the year today. It was for my economics and public policy class and focused primarily on microeconomics. I think it went well - I went through my answers with Jeff after I got home and he seemed to think I had done it all correctly.

Today feels somewhat strange to me - I think it's the least busy day I've had in quite a while - I don't have any really pressing things that have to be done quickly. So today is my day to go through emails and then try to catch up on readings for class.

Shooting Satellites

You may have seen stories in the news lately about the U.S. DoD satellite that was falling to Earth and was destroyed by DoD as it neared the atmosphere. Being in the space policy world, I heard quite a bit about this situation. I thought I'd try to write a brief summary of what happened.

The US Satellite, USA-193 was put into orbit, however, operators lost control of the satellite, meaning they had no way to maneuver it. This meant the satellite would have an uncontrolled de-orbit. This is not a particularly unusual occurrence - hundreds of items de-orbit every year. Since 70% of the Earth is water, there is a good probability it wouldn't end up on land. However, USA-193 was large - about the size of a bus, and had frozen hydrazine fuel - which is a hazardous material. According to UN Space Treaties, the United States (as the launching state) would have full liability for any damage caused by the satellite - this would mean helping with clean-up and paying all costs to return things to normal.

Given the slightly unique situation of this large satellite with hazardous material, the US government had to decide whether to engage the satellite or not. (One space policy official mentioned that people had recommended sending the shuttle to rendevous with the satellite and somehow snatch it out of the sky, but he said that since Bruce Willis and Clint Eastwood weren't available, this probably wouldn't work.)

The standard option would be to not engage. This would risk possible (but somewhat unlikely) damage to people or property. There was also a slightly higher than average risk of fatality because exposure to the hydrazine fuel, if the satellite landed on ground, could cause fatalities.

If the satellite was engaged, the fuel tank could be destroyed so that the hydrazine would dissipate in the upper atmosphere and the large satellite would be broken into smaller debris that would be more likely to burn up in the atmosphere or cause less damage hitting the Earth. However, creating more space debris is bad in general, because it endangers other items in space.

And now we're getting to the political aspect of things. To engage the satellite, we would have to alter one of our missile systems for this purpose. Once we use a missile system to engage a satellite, it proves that we have ASAT (anti-satellite) capability. This is an issue, because in January 2007, China tested an ASAT weapon - destroying a decaying Chinese weather satellite. This action was denounced by many of the other world powers. Some (particularly China and Russia) are arguing that the US is only engaging the satellite to make a show of power and respond to China's ASAT test. The US Government denies this allegation.

As you may be aware, the United States did choose to engage the satellite - it was a presidential decision. The satellite was destroyed, including the hydrazine tank. It seems that this issue is now passing, and the operation has gone smoothly.

However, this has once again raised the issue of ASAT weapons and the creation of space debris. Though this fits into that category, it is important to note the distinctions between the Chinese ASAT test in 2007 and the U.S. engagement of USA-193.

In January 2007, China destroyed an aging weather satellite, but did not provide any warning to other countries. In fact, they did not acknowledge that the test had occurred until more than a week afterwards. They still have not provided detailed information on the purpose of the test. The Chinese satellite was in a high orbit, so the thousands of pieces of debris will take hundreds of years to de-orbit. In the meantime, it increases the amount of space debris orbiting the Earth and is a hazard to other satellites and space assets.

The United States, on the other hand, notified other nations of its plans weeks before the final decision to engage the satellite was made. The satellite was destroyed very close to Earth atmosphere, so that all debris should de-orbit within about a week. Also, the technology used to destroy the satellite is being returned to its original purpose. It is also interesting to note that the technology used by the U.S. would not have been capable of destroying a satellite in a high orbit - like the Chinese weather satellite.

This was an interesting issue to see unfold in the media, as ASAT capabilities and space debris are topics often discussed in my space policy classes. Hopefully this was a helpful summary to anyone interested in the basics.

West Virginia

This weekend Jeff and I went to West Virginia with a bunch of friends. We stayed in our friend Stephanie's cabin in Canaan Valley. We got in late Friday night - the drive was a bit long due to a surprise snow storm we hit on the mountain, but we made it. That night we hung out, played Wii (I still looove boxing), and talked.

Saturday we all decided to go enjoy the freshly fallen snow - Stephanie, Rosalie, and Matt went to the ski slopes nearby. Emma, Jeff, Elena, and I went to the nature center and rented cross-country skis. None of them had ever gone cross-country skiing before, but I had learned it in gym class in middle school, so I was the resident expert. It was slow going, but it was fun, and definitely better than trudging through the paths with our non-outdoorsy boots and shoes.

Saturday night we went for dinner at Blackwater Brewery - which had great German food and micro-brews.

This morning we had breakfast - Rosalie, Elina, and Lindsay made banana and blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon - and then headed home.