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Quito
Sept 3rd
While
in Ecuador we are staying with Jim and Judy Brisco in Quito.
It sits on the equator and has 12 hours of night and light all
year round. The city is surrounded by a number of volcanoes. Sunrise is 6 AM. We slept in until 8. We will be
getting up early some morning so we can see them before the
clouds gather around the peaks.
 Our Spanish teacher, Wilson,
came at 9. Judie has arranged for us to take lessons every
morning the first week get some conversational Spanish
knowledge. My head was spinning from the altitude and trying
to remember new vocabulary words. We worked first on the
alphabet. Lots of vowels and consonants sound differently. I
found a number of Latin tips and vocabulary words coming back
to me. We spent the first 3 hour lesson on household words,
numbers, some verb conjugation and trying to learn to listen.
To my disappointment, AD only lasted an hour and we kicked him
out.
After class we went to lunch and had a
conch-shrimp cold soup which is a specialty. AD ate deep fried
shrimp. It was all delicious. We grocery shopped in a local
store in Cumby, the suburb Judie lives in. The store was
stocked full of familiar items. After shopping, Abdan, our
driver took us all up to Quito. We went to the New City (100+
years old) where all the tourists stay. A travel agent there
worked up a Galapagos Island cruise and a Andres highland
trip. We left him our desires and waited for a quote to come
back. Everyone felt like a nap but AD, so I took him to ride
his scooter in the neighbor park. It’s still hard to exert and
exercise. AD’s chest just pumps away from the littlest
activity. Unfortunately the pool is as cold as Lake Superior
so there’s not much swimming.
After dinner we learned to play “chicken
foot” a Dominoes game. Jim Briscoe came home during the game
and so we finally got to meet one of our hosts. Jim is one of
the top men at Schlumberger, an oil service company, here in
Ecuador. Electric power had gone out earlier in the evening.
Felt just like home. Fortunately it didn’t last very long.
It’s common enough that one of the neighbors had a generator,
we could hear roaring in the distance.
Spanish Lessons, Shopping...» |
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