Cuenca Updates: Saturday June 2, 2012

Saturday June 2/12 update

Bella saw the man across the street today, the one who got hauled away in the ambulance. She says he looked weak and he got in the passenger side of their vehicle with a young person driving. We suppose his condition precludes him from driving but it is gratifying to see that he is still around.

Exhaustion took over last night as I crashed at 10:30, up at 5, crashed again at 7:30 until noon. I am glad we had nothing scheduled for this morning as those old batteries definitely needed recharging.

Today the Internet is painfully slow and I even had to use the Basic HTML setting to see my Gmail.

I thought it funny that an Ecuadorian has commented on my YouTube videos, and subscribed to me, because he says my videos make him homesick. That is OK with me.

I have said I would join an expat fan club of the local soccer team even though I have yet to go to a game. I figured this would be a good way to be in touch to find out when the games are on. I went their first meeting in the west end today at 4:30 at the Mocha Cafe. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the scope of the club, and to watch the 2014 World Cup qualifying match between Ecuador vs. Argentina, which Ecuador lost 4-0. The meeting was informal but quickly got way over my head when they expect everyone to kick in $400 for 18 games, getting some of the better seats in the stadium. What was shocking is that there were about 10 guys and 10 women at this inaugural meeting.

I then met Bella and Chris at Joe’s Secret Garden, about 10 blocks away, for a 6:30 fried chicken supper.

On the walk there I went by this little shack for sale on Gran Columbia. It would be interesting to see what it sells for.

Then I saw a house with a very big black dog inside the gate which was being tormented by 3 small dogs outside the gate… See http://youtu.be/xUbLKR_m6xs

Bettye is still not feeling well so we were only joined by Chris, along with another houseful of people. We haven’t done this in a while and we went there hungry so we all ate lots of delicious fried chicken followed by an apple-peach cobbler. At our table we were joined by an Iranian-American couple and an English fellow who was breathing through his neck. We all certainly demolished every plateful of food they brought to our table.

At the urging of my sister Yvette I had to get Chris to take a photo of Bella and me to prove we still exist. Then one of our hosts, Joseph, asked me to photograph every table and send him the original size photos as they may use them on their website. I hope they all turned out.

Chris mentioned he saw our South African con-lady downtown and he recognized her scam right away and gave her a real short shrift. I can’t get over the nerve of these scam artists.

I also finally spoke to my little buddy Juan (Gilligan) today and we will probably do something together tomorrow.

Enjoy the pics. That was today’s excitement. Hugs to all.