Friday April 5, 2013 update #413
I stayed in bed for 10 hours, not necessarily sleeping, but
surely setting a modern-day record.
Bella was off early to do her Friday crochet/knitting
charity work that she enjoys so much. It
is nice to see her happy with that as well as the huge improvement in the
Wednesday and Sunday bridge group where they are really having a lot of fun.
I got busy with the usual chores and uploading more photos
for sale before deciding to research the demise of Banco Territorial and how we
might possibly get around to cashing our CD coming due in July. I managed to find the website for their
Banking watchdog and sent off a request for their advice, in English and in
Spanish. It was surprising to get a very
quick response to contact a particular individual with email and phone
number. We naturally opted for email so
we can use Google Translate to communicate in writing. Our Spanish is not good enough to be able to
understand any technical terms they may say.
Having a hard copy also makes it easier to confirm what was
communicated.
A person has to be quite careful with literal translations,
especially of names, for Banco Territorial becomes Land Bank, and the poor lady
we have to contact, Carolina Pesantez, unfortunately becomes Heaviness
Carolina.
I spent part of the afternoon getting into Chris Peterson’s
book, Methuselah’s Secret, which is available on Amazon I believe. I really like his writing style and it was
easy to get right into the characters and the plot. I am not a speed reader like Bella so it will
take me a week or so to finish it but I am already looking forward to delving
into his sequel, it is that good!
Tonight we met Mark and Karen, our second night at
California Kitchen, so Bella could enjoy her favorite baby-back ribs. I opted to also try the ribs and couldn’t
finish them all. Since we had ordered
the full-meal-deal with salad and dessert I did my best to eat the apple
cobbler and vanilla ice cream, but it was a struggle and made the rest of the
evening very uncomfortable. We were
entertained by a pleasant Latino singer, I believe the name was Haden according
to the CD that Karen bought, and he even played Guantanamera as I had
requested.
We weren’t finished for the evening yet because we had a
second appointment to meet Oswaldo and Caty at the Cuenca Symphony presentation
in the Old Cathedral. We arrived ½ hour
early and the place was packed already.
Luckily Oswaldo and Caty had saved us the best seats in the house in the
second row, since the first row was reserved for the dignitaries. The amazing guest Director was William
Vergara and the fabulous oboe soloist was Jorge Layana. They did some classical greats such as Claire
De Lune by DeBussy and Beethoven’s Fifth.
The acoustics in the old cathedral are magnificent and the music was
heavenly. It was standing room only and
we had people sitting in the aisles. My
photos were all taken without a flash.
A young lady sitting in the aisle in front of me was
obviously a budding musician as she hardly looked at the orchestra but was
playing an imaginary instrument in her lap.
I took a long video catching both her and the orchestra. I hope you enjoy it.
At the conclusion Oswaldo suggested that we go to Tutto
Freddo’s for coffee and everyone said OK.
They all had huge ice creams or milkshakes while I opted only for water,
I was still so bloated from supper. We
certainly had a lot of laughs, because everyone we mentioned was supposedly
Oswaldo’s cousin…
Bella has it in her head that we must get to Guayaquil on Monday to
cash the CD according to information on the Bank Superintendent’s website. I am digging in my heels that I am not
rushing there until I talk to Carolina Pesantez and get the proper
procedures. We both have many things
on the go in the coming week so Thursday is probably the day that is best for
both of us but we can’t afford to sit in Guayaquil
for more than the one day, I have the Silent Auction on the weekend to keep on
track. Hopefully everything will work
out.
I am working very late to get these ready for the Blog and
some guy is firing off fireworks way up on the mountaintop at 12:45am! My camera is close by so I hurriedly put it on
manual, set the shutter speed at 5 seconds and brace myself against the window
frame. No time to fart around with a
tripod and guess what??? I actually got
one of the clearest pictures I took tonight!! Enjoy.
