So my parents are on some sort of sailing cruise in the Caribbean right now. I know, weird, right? I don’t even know the whole story. In fact, my dad told me less than a week before they left! He swears he told me before, but I think I would have remembered being outrageously jealous that they chartered some sort of sailing cruise with a bunch of friends and relatives.
I just hope they are taking mega pictures. I told them that champagne was off-limits. I don’t want any new siblings and I don’t think drunken sea-sickness would be very much fun. Plus, I haven’t been with my family in about a year, so it would be nice to see their faces again. No falling over the railing of a sailboat in the middle of the Caribbean! At least not until I come home.
I got a package from my amazing friend Vincent the other day. Included in the box among the marshmallows, girl scout cookies, LifeSaver gummies, popcorn and peanut-butter-chocolate chips was a note that made me feel like someone back home really did love and miss me. Thanks, Vin.
I definitely do, however, need to comment on what it took to get this package. Along with the process that I am sure was hard enough to SEND it, picking it up was the stupidest thing I have ever done. First of all, a paper showed up at our house saying that I had a package at the post office that was partway across the city. I needed to bring two copies of my passport and I had heard some money too. Once getting there, I had to sign 3-4 times at different steps in the process, pay three different people taxes, processing fees, and copying fees (albeit only $2.50 in total), and have the contents of the package examined and rummaged through. At first I thought it was going to be just a slight pain in the arse, but as each new step of the process presented itself, I rolled my eyes deeper into my head. It was as follows, to the best of my memory:
- Stand in line
- Sign a paper and hand in my passport copies at station #1
- Pay at station #1
- Receive a number from station #1 so I could wait for station #2 to become available
- Wait in the waiting area until station #2 called my name
- Be led into the back where packages were locked up with padlocks
- Get package sliced into and examined
- Wait in station #2 until other customer was finished
- Sign a paper at station #2
- Cross the street and pay for a copy of sheet given to me at station #2
- Hand in copy at station #2
- Go to the bank to pay processing fee and get original paper signed and stamped
- Wait at station #3 for worker to retrieve my package
- Sign and leave passport number at booklet in station #3
- Leave (running as fast as my legs would take me)
And supposedly another package is coming for me! It’ll be my second. I didn’t know the first one was coming, but I do know about the second. I’m excited about that, but I wonder if it will make it in time. For everyone else, now is about the time to NOT send me anything else. I know you had packages and letters piled up just waiting to be sent to me, but don’t do it! This last package took 2 ½ months to get here. Very literally.
So I will continue to hope that the second package comes.
So after going to the beach with Cassie, the next weekend I had intended to head North, but I had no one to go with me (blast that John and his trip to Perú), so I enlisted in the trip to Montañita, another beach town. But we left a little later than the other folks from Oregon and the East Coast because us Idaho girls wanted to go to a soccer game!
I got to see Liga play Chile. We bought jerseys outside of the stadium and sat in the slightly fancier section. Carla’s Ecuadorian boyfriend Jorge had some sort of fan-club card that got us into the seats, but we realized not long into our time in the stadium that the general section was the place to be. There was smoke and banners and a sea of white in the general section. We had a drum player, but the general section was throwing TP over the fences onto the field, jumping in sync with each other to the team song, and there seemed to be persistent confetti being thrown. They were loud and fun and even a little dangerous. I actually heard that someone went into the section wearing a Chile jersey and was thrown down the stadium stairs and then attacked at the bottom! Liga fans love their team.
As we watched, we noticed that number 21 seemed to really suck! Of course he was a forward, which is a LOT of pressure, but it seemed like every time he was passed the ball, he wouldn’t turn his foot right and end up passing to the other team or missing the ball or something simple like that. I felt like a good number of the members from my high school team could have played better than he did! Not me, of course, but Warnke for sure.
Afterward we were told by Jorge's dad, to whom we had been complaining about 21’s performance, that 21 was actually ranked #3 in the world. He was the star of the team. Shows how much we knew.
It was so fun! I finally got to go to a game, after living in Quito for 8 months. Last semester I was on the mountain Cayambe when my group decided to go to a game. I was so upset! I mean, sure I was on one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, but I didn’t get to be with my friends while they ate chili-dogs in the stadium. No matter. I got to go this semester! It was awesome!
That night Cassie, Charlotte and I headed out for Montañita. We had to go to Guayaquil first, because that was the fastest and pretty much only way to get there. Everyone was leaving the city because it was Semana Santa (Holy Week) and therefore a holiday, so it was hard to get a ticket to anywhere. We tried two different stations before just going to Terminal Terrestre, the main bus-depot of the city. We got on a bus to Guayaquil and arrived there at somewhere around 4:30-5:00 in the morning. The terminal was a mess. Everyone in Guayaquil seemed to be leaving the city too. We found some French people that spoke very minimal Spanish. They asked us how to get to Montañita, so I told Alecsandre to stay with me in line. But after waiting at least 20 minutes to get to the front of the line, I was told that I was supposed to be one window over, even though it clearly said Montañita at this window!
I was so angry! Especially considering that the line to get a ticket to Montañita was going to take at least 2 hours to get through! So I put the most innocent, distressed, but friendly face on that I could muster that early in the morning and went to talk to the man who was guarding the split in the barrier of the line for Montañita where customers who had already gotten their tickets were exiting. He said I could slip in and ask, but I slipped in and as slyly as I could, slipped my way into the confused group of people waiting at the counter. The computer had gone down, so things had stopped. People behind me in the line were getting very angry with a lady who had slipped forward, using the excuse that she had already been there. It got to the point where two police/guards came to help keep the line/mob under control. The people in line were yelling and sighing and pointing fingers, saying he had cut, she had cheated. I knew that there were a number of people looking at me confused and angry that I was where I was, but I tried to act like a confused tourist. After slipping in and edging myself to the position where I could get tickets, I bought seven, trying to make as little hassle as possible for the man at the counter, and slipped out again (three for us girls and four for the Frenchies).
If there is one thing that I have learned from my daddy, I have realized recently that it is the ability to control my emotions at the right times so I can get people to do what I want. I was distressed but nice to the man guarding the exit, so he let me in to ask about tickets. I was a confused tourist to those around me in line, so I didn’t get yelled at. I was hassle-free and all business with the man selling tickets, so he printed 7 tickets without any problem. And I wasn’t making anything up. I was distressed, confused, and just wanted to get the thing done, I have just learned to suppress any other emotions that might come out and delay the process. I didn’t get angry, and I had stood in line as fairly as anyone else in what I thought was the right place before being told that I was supposed to be a window over. I made as little trouble for anyone else as possible, while still getting what I wanted. Thanks, dad. :)
Although, my dad doesn’t always leave anger out of it. He gets his way using frustration when he sees that the system needs changed. People start to listen when someone yells at them in a restaurant or in a store. But, growing up next to that yelling was not always fun. :)
Anyway, we chatted with the Frenchies for a bit while waiting for the bus. They paid me back and we got to know them a little. We were all sitting together on the bus, so they shared their gummy-bears with us. That was nice. They were all bus-drivers from Paris in South America for a month of vacation. Though they didn’t all speak English, Alecsandre made certain to thank me as much as he could, which was really nice of him.
The bus we rode on was amazing! Most buses in South America are “jazzed-up” with curtains that have fringes, all sorts of stickers of women with perfect bodies, and salsa music so loud that the speakers have all long since been blown out. But this bus was entirely different! It was like an airplane. We almost got cold from the air conditioner. The seats were made of that newer comfortable padding that never seems to wear out. It was clean and airy, the windows were huge and there was no blaring music. I was exhausted, but I stayed awake just to enjoy the bus. :)
When we got to Montañita, we parted with the Frenchies, knowing that Montañita was too small to not see them again before we left. We found the hostal that Matt, Megan, James, Max and Kat were staying in, found their room and walked in on them. They were, of course, dead asleep. So we got a room and went out on the beach!
The others slowly joined us as they saw the morning light. The last of them didn’t appear until well after noon. They seemed to have had a fun night the night before.
It was the perfect weekend on the beach. There was so much sun. We laid in it, got a little burnt, swam in the ocean, drank fruity drinks, and ate fun food from the street vendors. I guess at this point I am tired of writing, so I can just wrap things together in a small summary.
First, Matt nearly died in the same way that Charlotte and I nearly died a few short months ago. He and James were out swimming and got caught in a rip tide. Luckily James is a big, buff guy and was able to pull Matt out before they both went under. Matt was fully spooked and had to chill out in his room before he was ready to take on any more of the day.
Second, Charlotte, Carla and I were left to go to sleep early on Saturday night because everyone else went into Montañita and didn’t bother stopping to get us or call us or even take their phones so we could communicate with them. We went to bed at 9:30, even though we all had new dresses on and were ready to go out dancing for the night. That ended up being the only night that the guys were willing to dance. We weren’t there because we didn’t feel comfortable crossing the beach alone (after all, we were looking so hot in our little dresses that who could resist us?). We were quite angry about that. As you might be able to tell, I am letting go of the resentment still.
I hear a child crying right now outside. I don’t know if it is any kind of domestic violence, but it hurts me because I can’t do anything about it. That is someone else’s business and if I were to call the police on something like that, they would do nothing, besides maybe laugh in my face. The police get paid so little here that they really don’t give a shit. Hence why I never reported being robbed either time.
Okay, thirdly about Montañita, the two girls from Idaho wanted to leave in the morning for some reason, so that they could get into Quito before nightfall (doesn’t really make sense to me- I like traveling at night because it doesn’t waste as much of my useable time), but the bus we were going to catch that went straight to Guayaquil left about the time we were asking about it, meaning we had missed it. So it was either leave later in the afternoon or take multiple buses to get to Guayaquil. So I stayed with the other people, while Charlotte and Carla left to make their way back to Quito.
So we got to go hang out with a local family, watch part of a movie and eat fruit. Then we hung out on the beach for just a little longer. I was so frustrated with the other five because it took them so much time and decision-making and dragging of feet to do ANYTHING. But I just chilled out and let it flow.
But then trying to get out of the town and to the bus in time was not very easy. James and Max just wanted to chat for a long time with the IES girls and anyone else that we stopped to say goodbye to. By the time we got to the bus station, it was only a few minutes before the direct bus left, but all the tickets on said bus were sold. We had to take the multiple bus option, going from Montañita to Santa Elena on the first bus and then from Santa Elena to Guayaquil, where we caught a bus home. We arrived in Quito at something like 5:00AM. The next morning we found out that Charlotte and Carla hadn’t even made it into Quito until 2:00 or 3:00AM for some reason, even though they left somewhere around 6 hours earlier than we did.
Let’s see, what else? I really have nothing else to say! Oh yeah, I went to the post office the other day to send some post cards (some of you will be receiving some soon!), and was wondering if the guy was going to be mad that I was going to try and break a ten. I had 6 post cards and when I heard the total of $12, my mouth fell wide open! I couldn’t believe it! Ecuador recently raised all prices on foreign stuff. Sending mail outside of the country and buying non-Ecuadorian-made items in the grocery store has gotten expensive. So I took one back and gave him all of the ten that I had. So when I say “some” of you will be getting post cards, I really mean that way fewer than I had originally intended will be getting post cards. I have something like 20 cards now that I can’t afford to send to you all. I hope no one minds that I am going to bring them home and give them to you personally. Much more economical that way.
This summer I intend to be working as much as I possibly can. I have run out of cash fully and I am eager to have a little bit of fall-back money back in my account. Plus, I intend to make a trip to Moscow to plant a garden, go to a wedding, and show some of my friends Yellowstone National Park! :) I know, crazy that someone would actually want to see the beautiful place that I live in.
The best part? I get to live with my brothers and my mom and dad, who are, most definitely, the coolest people I know. I am legal to drink now, which means that my big bro and I are going to be making a foursome for bar-jumping with our two cousins Nate and Becca! Woohoo!
Good gravy, so we have this new little puppy, who is adorable, but the most poorly-behaved dog I have ever met! I know, she is still just a puppy, but I don’t think she is going to get any better. My mother doesn’t train her and I feel like if I were to kick her to teach her not to bite everyone’s ankles when they come in the house, I think my mom would then kick me. She is obsessed with animals and so I would be just another animal-beater. I can’t stand the dogs that bark non-stop, which is what she does, so I get to the point where I am on the edge of tears because she won’t shut up!! It is the most frustrating thing I have been dealing with lately.
Not that I am counting down the days, but I have one month from Sunday until I come home! I am enjoying my last bit of time here, though. Well, my story ends here for now. I am still several weeks behind, but I will wait to install more later. Have a great weekend!
Emily Kuhl
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