Valentine's Day a Week Late

So tonight we're going out to celebrate Valentine's Day because on the actual Valentine's Day Ryan was sick in bed (reference the picture below). Tonight we'll be going to one of the best restaurants in Quito, courtesy of my father, as we could not afford it on my $0.07 pay check.

Anyways, the menu looks great and it's been reviewed by the New York Times. This restaurant may be, in fact, the only thing in Quito EVER reviewed by the New York Times. But we'll see... I often get my hopes up for these great, swanky restaurants only to feel very uncool in the crowd and disappointed by the food. If there's one thing I can't stand its a restaurant that tries too hard.

Recently I've started to miss some of the things from home. I saw that Katie joined the facebook group for Chicago Festivals 2010 and it made me nostalgic. Even though I worked too much last summer to enjoy most of the festivals, it's nice knowing they're going on and that they're available to anyone who wants to grab some beer and greasy street food and sit on the sidewalk listening to local music. Ahhh... Chicago.

I also miss, Dad just keep your mouth shut, a good Gin and Tonic made by a bartender for under $5. Maybe I'll have one tonight, although I'm sure it will be much more than $5.

I miss Trader Joes like mad. We have great produce here, so that's not it. I don't even know what it is but I miss shopping there, just being in the store with the free samples and the constantly changing selection. Plus there's nothing remotely close to 2 Buck Chuck here. The cheapest wine we've seen has been $4 in a box and about $8 in a bottle. Too expensive.

There are certainly things I don't miss one bit though too. I don't miss writing a rent check, a car payment check, a car insurance check, and utilities checks every month. I don't miss that at all.

I also don't miss one bit all of the hours I spent at work. Don't get me wrong, I miss my co-workers, but not the hours I spent there. Certainly not.

I also don't miss having a car. This might be suprising, considering the amount of time I spent in my car. But goodness, I'm soo happy to not have one. I've got two legs that work great and for 25 cents I can get anywhere in this city. It's nice to be my own mode of transportation.

I also don't miss not seeing Ryan everyday. Living together is great for the sole fact that we get to see each other everyday. I love that!

Anyways, wish us luck tonight! I'm sure it will be great!

MULUB,

Taylor

PS. Can anyone guess what I miss probably the most about living in Chicago (besides seeing my girlfriends everyday)?

We're Home

Ryan sick in bed with tons of gatorade, fiber bars, and pedialite. This is how we spent most of Valentines Day, all of Monday and some of Tuesday.

At the beginning of the Cuicocha hike. See that ridge? That's what we hiked along. Pretty strenuous for a first hike.

Ryan bought a flute at the handicrafts market. yay. He can play two songs: When the saints go marching in and Jingle Bells.

At the waterfall before being sick, after the market!

We got home from Otavalo yesterday afternoon. It was a really great trip with one minor bump. On Sunday we went for a hike at Cuicocha lake. It was a pretty tough hike. We basically hiked along the ridge of these mountains overlooking the lake for 4-5 hours. Ryan got pretty sick from dehydration while we were hiking and it took him a couple of days to recover. Hence, coming home on Tuesday instead of the originally planned Sunday.

All in all though the trip was really great. The hostel was AMAZING! If anyone is ever in Otavalo we would highly recommend Rose Cottage. It was outside of the town, nestled in between valleys and mountains. It was so beautiful and so relaxing. The perfect escape from the city. Plus, we really got a long well with the people that run the hostel. Basically the place used to be a family's vacation home. Then about a year ago they decided to make it into a hostel. Instead of building one big building, they built a bunch of smaller houses. Each member of the family takes a turn living at the hostel and running it. One of the sons, Richard, had just arrived a couple of days before we arrived with his girlfriend, Sophie, and Sophie's brother, Alex. Sophie and Richard are going to be running the hostel until at least June. We exchanged phone numbers and hope to see them sometime again!

Anyways, we'll share more about the trip in the next couple of days. In the meantime, check out the photos on facebook. The album is Otavalo and they're on my account.

MULUB,

Taylor

PS. We're praying for the Matson family.

Going to Otavalo

We're going away for the weekend. It's Carnaval here so we have Monday and Tuesday off of work. It also happens to be Valentine's Day!!! So we're headed out of town, along with the rest of the Quitenos.

We're planning on leaving any minute now, well as soon as finish the dishes and the laundry. Supposedly there's a bus that leaves every 20 minutes from the main bus station. So we'll head over there and wait until the next one comes.

Once we get to Otavalo we plan on going to the markets all day tomorrow and then Sunday hiking around Cuichocha lake (Guinea Pig Lake). And yes folks, we plan on eating lots and lots of cui, otherwise known as guinea pig. =)

We'll be back either Sunday night or Monday morning, depending and then we're going out for dinner at Zazu to celebrate Valentine's Day (a day late).

We'll take lots of pictures and post them to Facebook when we get back. Plus we've got some skype dates that we're really excited on Monday!

Ryan is excited about going to the markets and possibly buying an Andean ukulele thingy (his words, not mine).

I'm excited to be in the mountains.

Cheers Mates,

Taylor and Ryan

It's like on MTV Cribs

This is what we have in our fridge and our cupboards!

Top Shelf: Brown Eggs (the only kind I've seen here) and Extra Yellow Butter

Second Shelf: A bag of olives, Brie, Cheddar (A note on cheese, they really only have Queso Fresco, everything else is garbage.)
The Freezer: A Turkey (It's not ours, it's the landlords), that thing wrapped in tin foil is a chicken.

Top Shelf of the Fridge: Bread, yogurt, beer

Second Shelf: Water, Milk, Juice

Bottom Shelf: Ground beef, left overs, and a cantaloup
In our cupboard: quinoa, black beans, brown sugar and regular sugar (the sugar is like cane sugar which is cool but not the same), flour (most of the flour has baking powder in it already... weird) rice, pasta.
A whole myriad of things: snacks from the plane, granola, oatmeal, chocolate bars (because there are no chocolate chips), syrup (for granola), walnuts and prunes (also for granola)

Then we've got some tea and coffee filters and our small collection of spices!

*Side note: those three little jars are a house warming gift from Maria Jose and Casey! They're filled with Cumin, Aji powder, and Oregano! Thanks Guys!

And that's it. Just thought you'd want to see =)

MULUB,

Taylor

Mystery Fruit #2, 3 and 4

Ok, well we know that the Kiwi is a Kiwi. All of the others, well, we're not quite sure.

The little banana looking things were filled with orange seeds that tasted kind of sour. Ryan mashed them and tried to make a juice. Meh, not so good.

The green and brown thing that looks like a mini-watermelon tasted like a pear combined with something else, but I'm not sure what. We sprinkled some brown sugar on it and it was pretty tasty.

The red things that look like sea urchins were by far the best thing we ate. You peel the spiny skin off of them and the inside looks like an eyeball. Yes this part was slightly unappetizing. They have long seeds in them and the fruit is around the long seed. They taste like nothing that I've tasted. They're sweet, in a good way, and have the texture of those little onion things that come in a jar that are sometimes served with cocktails. Regardless, I liked them best and I'd like to figure out how I could bake with them.

Has anyone seen any of these before? Or better yet, has anyone made anything with these before?

Thanks! MULUB,

Taylor

For the love of money

One thing that really bothers me is that no one here seems to have any change. Either that or they look at your money like it was printed at Milton Bradley. Look, I'm sorry that this five doesn't have any cigarette burns on it, but I can assure you that despite it's lack of wear, it is real money. But still, they feel it, hold it up to the light, call Ms. Cleo, align their chakras.

Back to the change. We were getting almuerzos one day after class (huge lunches for $1.50 each) and I go to pay and I give the guy a ten, and he looks at me like, "If I'd known you'd be using large bills, I would've, you know, not used a cup as my cash register." Now, I know, I'm the one who gave him a ten, but I couldn't give him a five, cause I didn't have one. And I couldn't give him a one, because the lunch was three dollars, and a one would've been insufficient.

He takes my ten, money is money after all, and digs through his cup looking for change, mostly fifty cent pieces. He only manages to muster four dollars before asking his (presumable) wife if she had change. (Well, you can probably guess where this story is going) She didn't. But she did ask another customer for change. Which he had. Sort of. I Think. I'm not really sure quite what happened, but I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any money in the deal.

Thankfully the ATMs here do give out fives, but maybe they can be bred with a slot machine, so that you can just put your card in and hold your over-sized drink cup underneath and, viola, no need for change ever again. Although, then you'll have to go to the renaissance fair to find a pouch big enough for all those coins. Then they'll probably tell you that they only accept bills as payment.

-Ryan

Mystery Fruit #1

This is the fruit that Ryan couldn't figure out what is was. We still have no idea, except we know that it was indeed NOT a black sapote.

Any ideas on what this is? Or what to do with it?