This and that

Our friends, Grant, Pablo and Eddie, came last night to take the desk, the couch, a set of plates and all of the kitchen utensils.

We noticed under the couch that there are some scratches in the wood floor. Any ideas on how to remove them? I'm going to see if I can find some wood polish at Megamaxi today. Wish me luck! 

There are two other projects that I want to do in the apartment (fix the hinges of the door and fix the window that Chuki broke). But Ryan thinks we don't need to because she (the landlady from you know were) has $400 to pay for all of that.

Today is our last day of class! We have to go into inlingua this afternoon and drop off books and reports.

Tonight we're going to a dinner party. Tomorrow we're going to Otavalo. Sunday we're hiking to the refuge at Cayambe. Then Sunday night we're off to the jungle.

We're watching an insane amount of LOST. We're halfway through Season 5. WHAT? We just started watching Season 3 a couple of weeks ago. We're lame, we know.

MULUB,
Taylor

What's in Your Pack?

So we've been hiking these last two weekend and it's been fabulous. I could go on for ages (and I might in a later post) about all of my gear envy and ESPECIALLY my camera envy that I've been having within our hiking group. But I won't do that right now. Right now, I thought you might want to know what we take with us in our packs. Usually when we're just hiking in Metropolitano, or taking a pack for a day trip, we share one. There's no use in both of us carrying a 1/2 full pack. But yesterday when we hiked Illinizas we both took our own because we needed a little more stuff. So without further a do...

Ryan's Pack

Chapstick with sunscreen

Headlamp

Garbage bag... can't leave it in the forest

Extra bags

Snacks

Dry and clean change of clothes

Lots of water

Warm layers

Rain layer

First Aid

There's some other things in there too. Like keys, cell phone, map, toilet paper. But these are the essentials!

Project Number 2 - Day 36 (Wednesday)

Yesterday I had the first of my 'last classes'. Does that even make sense? I finished a class yesterday. It was one of my private classes with the kids. It was good/awkward. They gave me a present, which I LOVE! They're these hand formed clay figures of indigenous people that have these little napkin holders on them. I was instructed to use them on Thanksgiving, which I will! I brought the little boy and myself treats to eat in class while we did his homework. Then the dad drove me to where the taxi driver was waiting and made me promise that if we EVER came back to Ecuador we would call them. (This is the family that took us to the LIGA game in their suite.) Then I left.

I didn't really eat much because, I think I forgot to.

Breakfast - I made oatmeal with a plantain and some frozen strawberries.

Lunch - I had a Coke and a small bag of papas. Plus then with my student I had a guagua de pan (bread filled with blackberry jam).

Dinner - Ryan and I chatted with Ryan's parents while we were cooking dinner. It was a late one because I had late class and then we had to go to Mega. We contemplated buying a rotisserie chicken but they were $8 and we can get a chicken, rice, soup, and potatoes for $10 at GUS. We decided on pasta, without sauce, fresh veggies and smoked mussels. DELICIOUS but not super fast. I was so hungry that I ate two bowls.

TODAY

MUST. CLEAN. APARTMENT. TODAY

Crate Training

So we figured Chuki would never like his crate BUT last night he slept in his crate all night without whining until breakfast this morning. We want him to at least be used to sleeping in there before we fly! This is major success! The longest time that he's been in there with the door closed is maybe 3 hours.

Project Number 2 - Day 34 (Monday)

So I'm a day late in posting this and it's always harder to remember what I actually ate... But I remember because I only ate two things.

For breakfast I had coffee and yogurt with a banana, uvillas and frozen strawberries.
For lunch and for dinner I had a bowl of chili. For lunch I had it with some corn bread, for dinner no corn bread.

I also had a snack of chifles.

Thats it!

Project Number 2 - Day 35 (Tuesday)

Yesterday I was really hungry again... who knows why?

For breakfast I had coffee and yogurt with a banana and uvillas.
For lunch I had a sandwich from a little store.
For dinner Ryan made a super delicious naranjilla chutney with rice and chicken. MMM. He also made an appetizer; fancy, I know. We had an avocado with some seasonings!

For a snack, because I was still hungry, I had some dried cranberries.