We started off by going to the Guns N Roses concert. I think Ryan is going to blog about the concert later, so I won't say much. What I will say is that it could have never happened in America and there were fans there that had been waiting 20 years to see Guns live in Ecuador. Regardless, it was a VERY long night. We left after Gun's 1st encore and still didn't get home until well after 2am. It was nice to spend time with some of the other teachers and Danni, our boss, and Jhon, our spanish teacher and also Danni's fiance, outside of work. Hearing some of those songs live took me right to Highwood during my junior year of school, closing down the bars and fist pumping like we'd never have another night at Gabe's and/or Teddy's. T'was good.
Then today, we slept in! We slept until almost 10am, which is by far the latest we have slept in during the whole time we've been here. It was glorious! Of course Chukes still got up at 5:30 but he's learning to play on his own so it worked out just fine. Almost immediately after we got up we started getting ready to go to el centro for the parade. The parade goes through all of the historical district and it tries to re-create the Biblical good friday, over and over again. I'll post pictures as soon as I can but basically people build these big crosses and then take turns carrying them throughout the city, in the heat and usually barefoot. There were people dressed up like the Pharisees and also like monks or devotees (?). We're not quite sure what they were but their costumes were rather unfortunate for the American psyche. They wore the same outfit as Klan members except in purple. =(
There was a minor hiccup in the parade viewing. Everyone we talked to said the parade started in the morning. When I asked Jorge (the son in law of our landlords) he said it started at 10. Seeing we woke up at 10, we quickly got ready and headed down to el centro. When we got there we found our perfect spot on the hill of the basilica, right next to the water tent and with a perfect view. Then we asked a police officer what time the procession would come by and he told us 2:30-3. Mind you, this was at 10am. So we decided we should go home, get Chuki, and come back.
By the time we returned (at about 12:15) the procession had just started going past and lo-and-behold our perfect spot was gone. Anyways, we watched the procession, Chuki was petted by 100 million people it seemed and then we went to the cafe in the Basilica's plaza and had some refreshment. More petting, a little shade, followed by more petting.
We left the Basilica and headed towards MegaMaxi. Next to MegaMaxi there's a restaurant, Mi Cosina, that a lot of our students have told us they have the best fanesca. Now, what is fanesca, you might be wondering? It's a soup that Ecuadorians eat only during the Easter holiday season. Its hard to explain but its something like a chowder with lots of beans, corn, and choclos. Plus it has plantains and baby empenadas. Traditionally it comes with dried fish but now a days you can order without. So we went to Mi Cosina, waited in a line out the door and around the corner, took a seat outside (we had Chukes with us), and enjoyed. It was good and we decided we want to try a couple more places to see the varieties!!
Then we went to All Pets. Chuki's due for his next set of shots. We had to wait about an hour in the waiting room just to find out that we're two days early and we must come back on Sunday. So we got his flea protection and we'll go back on Sunday for the rest.
Then we came home, watched Blind Side (which I cried through the whole thing), ordered a pizza and went to bed. It was a very good day and we have another busy day planned for tomorrow!
MULUB,
Taylor
