Wednesday November 7, 2012

Wednesday November 7/12  update #278

We coordinated jumping on the # 16 bus with Paul Wolf this morning to see his photos, and those of Christine Magee on display above the Kadaffa Café on Avenida Solano.   We were too slow getting to our bus stop so we caught the #15 and actually got ahead of them by a block!  The exhibit is quickly throw together, poorly advertised, and there are no signs outside, so the show is bad for the artists.   Paul and Christine’s work is superlative, but there is just nobody finding it in this remote spot.   It is really too bad.

Bella had to cash a cheque drawn on a particular Credit Union and did so with no problem.   She had tried to deposit a US cheque at Banco Pichincha yesterday by showing her Bank Debit Card and was refused by the minions on the ground floor.  Today we went up to the “Private Banking” folks we know and asked what the problem was???   We talked to Diana and she said they would handle it for us up there as long as we endorsed the cheque and showed our account number.  No problemo.

Next we went up the stairs to El Centro and checked out The Remigio Crespo museum which had all kinds of old artifacts before stopping at Sabor Latino on Calle Larga for lunch (almuerzo).   We noticed a new lady behind the counter but were hoping it would be the same great menu, just a replacement cook…  Actually the meal was less money, only $1.50, but the soup was pasty potato soup, not to my liking at all.    As we departed there, we saw another new lunch place opened up just 2 doors away called Long Street Café Bar, at 6-60 Calle Larga.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the former lady from Sabor Latino now running that place, so we promised her we would be back to have lunch with her another time.

We stopped at a premier software shop, not far from the Coffee Tree (which is mysteriously closed) and Mavis and I each bought a Photoshop CS6 disk for a whole $5.

It was threatening rain but we headed for the San Francisco market anyway.   Mavis was looking for Christmas gifts for many of her extended family so we had many, many bags to cart home upon completion.   We did some shopping at one booth, then went and had juice, coffee, and a beer, respectively at a nearby lunch place.  Then we returned to a different booth, bought more stuff, then went back to the original booth and bought more.  The fellow at the original booth gave Mavis a “yapa”, free gift of a shawl, for spending so much with him.

We caught a cab home and I tried to load the CS6 on my computer with Mavis watching.   I felt pretty stupid when nothing would load and the instructions made little sense to me.  I even “phoned a friend” for help but we were none the wiser after that.   I had noticed many references to Apple in the instructions but kept hoping there were some dual instructions because we had specifically told the man we wanted the Windows versions several times.  When Mavis showed me the Apple logo on the packaging I was a tad upset at these guys so they will be seeing me tomorrow!

That was today’s excitement.    Hugs to all.   Please see all photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/