"No te vayas"

I had breakfast with the family.  That was at about 10am.  Joaquin had already showered.  As we ate Adriana said it was my last breakfast with the family, but I assured her I’d get up early for tomorrow’s breakfast.  I simply can’t miss that.  Carlos even said something like I had to get up for it.  So, today was my 2^nd to last breakfast in Quito.

Carlos, Juanjo, Joaquin, Martica and I then went to a mall in el Condado so that Carlos could pick up some tennis shoes he had asked Cesar to save for him.  Cesar works at the Converse store.  The mall was really nice.  I think I liked it better than the others I had been to because of the design.  We chilled at the Converse store for a while until Carlos bought his shoes and a few other things.  We walked around, Juanjo got in a kids’ maze that was set up I think for the holiday season, we got ice cream and looked for a digital camera for Joaquin – “¡La mas barato!”  Yes, that’s how he would say it.  We were all very hungry so we were glad to head over to gramma’s house for lunch and hang out there for the rest of the evening.

I had a credibly good time with all of them.  As always the lunch was good – Adriana made sure to cook the beans for me since she knows I love them… plus she loves beans as well.  I played “five coin” with Joaquin, Micaela and Juanjo.  Five coin is a game that Joaquin showed us which require a coin, we used a quarter, and to start off one of the players spins the coin.  The next person has to keep spinning it, then the next, etc.  Whoever makes it stop loses.  I really liked this game.  Maybe I should say he’s not really sure that’s what it is called.  We also played a cool game Rumikub. When it came time to leave, everybody began to say goodbye to me and I got a little emotional.  Don Hernan hugged me for a long time and told me that I was always welcome there because they are now my family as well.  I was very touched with what they had to say.

Oh yeah, Don Hernan made me laugh during lunch when he was talking about how his illegal dvd's weren't working.  Jessica was saying that they aren't good quality, after all they are $1.  Don Hernan made sure to clarify that they were "un dolar cincuenta."

Later that night Yonseili and I went out with Robert Pattinson, I mean, Joaquin.  We waited forever for a taxi.  We decided to go to calle Floreana to see if we could get one there and then headed towards Amazonas.  A white car approached us and asked if one of us was "Denis," and that was our driver.  We had seen that car on floreana with the hazard lights on... maybe he was lost.  He said something was going on with the car, whatever.  We just wanted to get to Coffeetree.

All I have to say is that I will really miss Coffeetree.  We had a good time hanging out.

Highlight of the day: Hanging out with the fam.

CoffeeTree

I woke up, had breakfast and got ready to go to the museum with Yonseili.  We had invited Joaquin but he had already gone so he obviously wasn’t interested.  We walked to Quicentro where Yonseili got something to drink and from there we got a taxi to take us to El Museo del Hombre.

The museum was good.  Guayasamin was very talented and I really do enjoy looking at his art.  I couldn’t pass up buying a poster of one of his paintings.  I look forward to putting it up on my wall in my future home.  Yeah, I thought that far ahead.  The museum guide girl talked really fast and therefore Yonseili and I just decided to go our own ways.  I am very glad we went before leaving.  Our pics are good, the view was great, and the weather was perfect.  We headed home.

I went to the market with Joaquin to buy a few more last-minute things.  I couldn’t believe that it would be my last time there.  I felt amazing knowing I learned how to negotiate and knowing what things should cost.  I even recognized some of the vendors.  I looked at the time and freaked out.  We were supposed to meet Carlos at the house at 1:30 and that’s the time it was.  Sh*t!  Joaquin had no problem agreeing with me that it was my bad, but I also knew that Carlos wouldn’t be mad.  So we headed out and thankfully I was satisfied with my last-minute shopping.  We took forever to get a freakin’ taxi and when we finally did we got home at about 2:15ish.  Although the original plan was to eat out (Carlos, Joaquin and I), Carlos said that Adriana was on her way from the party she went to with Juan Jose.  Joaquin almost died of starvation so I had to steal bread for him.  I got it from the top of the microwave.  He really couldn’t get it himself because he felt bad.  When she arrived we all went out to a good seafood place right around the corner.  Ceviches Manabita I think is the name of it.  I could be completely wrong.  I got ceviche de camarones because I actually craved it.  Back home, before I came, I never would have craved seafood.  There was a man playing the guitar and it was nice.  I got a little emotional because Carlos lately has been making toasts and saying it was a pleasure to have me at their home…

The rest of the evening I packed… that is until Yonseili and I went with Adriana to CoffeeTree.  It was girl’s night out and we enjoyed it very much.  The dj and music was good.  We heard a lot of good old school songs.  As always it was a pleasure sharing time with Adriana.  She asked us what we liked best and didn’t like about Ecuador.  Yonseili and I agreed that the worst thing were the scares with suspicious men/activity.  The best thing was Adriana and her home.  She got teary-eyed.

The weather was insane.  There was a lot of fog and we thought that hopefully it wasn’t like that on our flight day.

Highlight of the day: Girl's night out!

Yeah... it's official. I'm leaving.

Since I’d said I’d go, I had to wake up early to go to Glenca’s house with Adriana.  Of course, if I would have known what I know now I wouldn’t have gone because Adriana and I were late for Yonseili’s presentation.  It was time-consuming to get a taxi due to the rain.  We had to be at Glenca’s at 8am and arrived at 8:45.  She talked about authority and what the bible says about it.  I made it a point we had to leave early, but of course Ecuadorians are always running late so I shouldn’t have counted on me telling them to be enough.  They still wanted to have breakfast.  Adriana had made empanaditas to eat there.  They took their sweet time eating and talking.  I was dying inside from the stress, the anxiety.  We finally left and I knew that we wouldn’t make it.  Adriana was super calm and kept telling me we’d be fine because they probably wouldn’t start the presentation right at 10.  And to top it off the taxi driver we got was all calm.  I had to breathe in and out and hope Yonseili wouldn’t kill me.  We asked the taxi driver to wait for us outside the house while I ran in, brushed my teeth and got my exhibition stuff.  Para la calle Noruega y 6 de Diciembre is where we headed.  I prayed to God that the presentation wasn’t over.

When we got to school Adriana and I had begun to go up to the top floor but then Carolina stopped us and told us the presentation was elsewhere so she walked us.  We walked in to Yonseili’s very nice presentation.  She was smooth.  Yonseili and I had a heart-felt moment after everyone left the room.  Regarding my presentation, I must say Yonseili’s affected mine in a good and different way than I thought my presentation would have been.  It was a very sentimental moment I think for many in the room, especially us two.

After the presentation Adriana and Yonseili accompanied me to the historic center so that I could look for some jerseys.  The weather was absolutely horrible.  We were in traffic FOREVER!  I finally got the jerseys right away and we were in traffic for another 45 minutes and that led us to arrive to our presentation just in time.  After our graduation we said our goodbyes.  I felt so relieved to be done with school.  We came home after graduation and I just hung out.  The rest of the evening was smooth.  I finished a lot of my packing today.

Highlight of the day:  Graduating of course.

Busy day

I worked on the academia’s presentation today, most of the day.  To start the day we went took a taxi down Shyris to find a printing place Yonseili had been to before.  We both needed to print out pictures for our exhibition.  The guys at the printing place were very helpful and for a change we had good customer service.  I also couldn’t believe the incredibly good price we were getting our prints for.  We paid and walked to El Jardin to talk to the same guy Yonseili’s been talking to about her USB that’s not working correctly.

We arrived and I noticed the guy was kind of hiding.  Yonseili asked me to tell the group of employees for help.  Then the guy came and as he helped her I sat at a nearby couch to watch Pirates of the Caribbean that was being played at one of the display flat-screen TV’s.  After about 30 minutes he ended up telling her she had to go to some tech-place to get it checked out to confirm it really isn’t working in order to get it replaced.  We had to go home because it was Yonseili’s lunch time.

For my exhibition stuff I had to go to the papeleria at the corner to get construction paper.  Pretty much the rest of the night I worked on my presentation at Yonseili was at her house working on her bizcochos that are to be passed out at her presentation.  It rained a lot.  The internet connection is always lost due to the heavy rain.  Joaquin had never heard such loud lightning.  By the way, it’s really cool to hear him speak Danish.

Highlight of the day: I will miss the rain, actually the weather all.  I've learned to appreciate the weather here-you get it all!  The thunder, although I'm not a fan, was perfect.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Juan Jose!

Adriana woke me up because I had asked her to since I went to sleep at 3:30am.  I had breakfast and then got ready to go to school because I had to help Carolina with the Christmas event the academia puts together for a foundation.  I didn’t really know what was going on until I arrived to the school.  The project that was there is Covi from the Carolina Park.  It was very nice; they had good kids and a good teacher.  Before the kids arrived I helped with a few things and then 5 girls from the Academia, including me, went over to the park so that we could help walk the kids to the school.  It’s only a 4-minute walk.  We met them, walked them to the school, and a lady “clown” was waiting for them.  The kids had a lot of fun; even the students enjoyed watching the kids play whatever the “clown” wanted them to do.  The kids got candy, prizes and snacks.  When the show ended we took a picture and walked them back to the park.  Next I headed back home to help with Juan Jose’s surprise party.

Yonseili was there because she wanted to make the cake for Juan Jose.  She was very stressed due to her human resources class presentation that was today.  She was looking for any excuse to not work on that presentation.  The decorations we put up were so cool and the dining room had a complete transformation.  Adriana was kinda stressed as well hoping everything would turn out okay.  As asked to, Carlos’ family came over at 3, half an hour before Juan Jose arrives from school.  Then, the time finally came and we heard the buzzer – John Joe had arrived.  So we all went into the dining room and waited for Adriana to walk in with him.  When he walked in we yelled “¡Sorpresa!”  He hugged everyone present and then we all had delicious hot dogs. 

Overall the party went well.  Juan Jose had no idea about the party and I enjoyed everyone’s company.  Carlos’ family is very easy to get along with.  The number 6 candle was blown out three times, he opened his gifts, Carlos and his nephew Alex made a dog out of a long balloon.  Yonseili couldn’t really be there because she had to leave to school for her presentation.  As a matter of fact she left about when the family arrived.  Everyone left early and we cleaned up.  I vacuumed the living room carpet because it was a mess and it wasn’t letting me breathe.  Their vacuum is nice to work with. 

Later we did something amazing… we finished the puzzle!  Martica helped us out with that.  Then I helped Joaquin with his Spanish homework.

Highlight of the day: (The surprise party)

Just let all your anger out Yonseili!

I woke up and saw Yonseili at my desk.  “Whaaaat?” is what I first thought…

She was working on her Human Resources homework and apparently she had been at my desk for two hours.  I had no idea because I was still working on my z’s.  I must admit it was very nice to wake up and see her.  I don’t mean to sound cheesy, but it really did make me happy to see her there, it was a good surprise.  She worked on her assignment for a while.  As I made my bed after I went back to sleep again and then got up, I bugged her.  Yes, I just felt like doing it until she ‘had it’ and got the pillow and hit me once.  This may sound violent but it was all in good fun.  I then told her, “let out all your anger,” and that’s what she did.  She hit me several times as she said something that upset her, including: I never went to Chile!  I never had Chilean olives!  I couldn’t help but laugh after every hit and every sentence.

After I made my bed we went downstairs to have bread and chocolate with Adriana.  Yeah we brought up how we were leaving soon and it always gets a bit quiet.  I showered and got ready to go to Super Maxi with Yonseili because we needed to get a few things there.  We were looking at wine and I noticed two guys were fishy/shady.  I kept my eyes on them and got a bad gut-feeling.  From then until the time we paid I was a bit scared and I am still traumatized that we were possibly looked at as victims of whatever crime.  One guy just walked back and forth, and then they both went away.  Then we saw them again and one went near the door and I saw he was talking to someone far away outside the store as the other dude was somewhere behind us with an empty shopping cart.  We went out a different way after paying and waited to see if anyone was following.  I was really worried but we got out, got a taxi and went home.  Thank God we got home safely.  I talked to Adriana about it and she said that many have kidnapped kids and held them in a car in the parking lot while they wait to see the parents run out in panic so that they can take them aside and ask them for money.  Horrible.

I worked on the computer for a while and then had lunch.  John Joe did dance a bit for me it; it was great.  Joaquin arrived and later we had a conversation about religion.  It was interesting.  We have different views.  Let’s leave it at that.

When Yonseili got home from school she came over and took a test on my computer.  For dinner we had sanduches and soup.  Since Juan Jose’s birthday is tomorrow we went to el Jardin to buy him a gift.  We then saw that it was closing so we went to Quicentro and found gifts there.  I got him an activity kit and Joaquin got him a Magnetix toy.  We got them wrapped there.  Afterward I helped Joaquin with his Spanish.  I went to sleep really late.

Highlight of the day: Yonseili!

¡Feliz Cumpleaños Raquel Paliz!

I woke up feeling like crap but throughout the day I felt way better.  We didn’t do much today until the night.  In the afternoon Raquel called us to invite us to her house for a little get-together for her birthday.  She told us she’d be blowing out candles, but apparently the plans changed a bit later in the day.

We left to her house at about 6:30 to be there by 7pm.  We were the first guests there so we helped her with the nativity set she had next to her amazing, beautifully decorated Christmas tree.  Her cat had bumped down a lot of the nativity set so we mainly needed to reorganize it.  I asked her who would be going and the following were present:

Relatives:

-Her husband

-Her son Paul

-Her niece and the niece’s husband and daughter.  By the way this girl (the niece’s daughter) had a contagious laugh.  She looked really cool and was about 13.

Friends:

-“El arquitecto” and his wife

-A lady

-Paty the director, along with her sister Sandra and her husband

-Gina Longstreet (student)

-Stephanie Spivey (student)

-and us

The get-together turned out to be a little party.  The husband and son were not expecting that at all until about 6pm so they hurried to get treats for the guest and sandwiches from El Español.  We really had a great time. 

Highlights of the night:

-         Singing happy birthday to Raquel

-         The chocolate cake

-         The dancing!

-         The drive back home

Singing happy birthday to Raquel:  She definitely got a little emotional when her husband was doing the toast and that wasn’t easy to see, but I hope that God blesses her with many more years and that all her wishes come true.

The chocolate cake:  Thick and rich.  Scrum-diddly-umcious.  Gina served the cake pieces and holy smokes she gave out huge pieces.  I couldn’t finish mine.  I tried, I really did.

The dancing!:  It was the coolest thing to have fun dancing with chill people and simply not at the Bungalow.  Raquel did not hold back and danced a lot as well.  She has a lot of energy and passion and it was very obvious tonight.  She danced all night and very well.  I now know why she used to be the dance instructor at the Academia years back.  I love her! She’s sooo cool!  The music at first wasn’t too fun because her husband was not choosing good music.  Yonseili saw a Kumbia Kings CD and told him to put that in.  That’s when the fun started.  Later her son brought his iPod and the real fun started.  He has a lot of good music.

The drive back home: Eventually the party had to stop and Raquel and her son took three of us back home.  We first took Raquel’s friend (the lady) to her house and then they dropped us off.  On our way there Yonseili scared us all with her scream after she thought Paul wasn’t going to press on the breaks because of some dogs that were up ahead.  Paul’s reaction was hilarious and kept saying things like, “P*ta” and “Chuta” and a bunch of other funny stuff because Yonseili almost gave him a heart attack.  It was really funny.

Highlight of the day: Being present at an amazing person’s birthday party.  We will definitely never forget Raquel.