Throwback Nativity

We use to act out the nativity. Which this year, my brothers, the angels stole the show with their antics.

Throwback Comms

My obsession with phone booths. Every country I see one I run in and take a picture. I have bathroom obsession too, but I thought not to post.  Wow how communication has changed.

Throwback Parents

I realize I should show my parents at their best and not too old (my dad is 70 this year!).

Throwback Mom

Happy Birthday Mom!  You are now old. No, you have four more years until that date.

Throwback Football

Fiesta Bowl as a family. Woot Woot go Ute!

Throwback Sunday Dinner

In London, I was able to convince them to take a week and on Sunday cook what they usually had at home.  Some were better cooks then others, but hey we also didn't have the same ingredients as at home.

Throwback Daddy Daughter

Thought I should show some of my troll pictures. Not my best, but I have a great smile.

Throwback Birthday

Opa at my last birthday dinner at a friend's house.

Mouth of the Abyss...Amazon Here We Come.

Our third day we went to Banos, south of Quito at the mouth of the Amazon. It was a cool resort outdoor town. It did take us four hours to get there but so worth it.  We past the tallest volcano, Cotopaxi, on our way. We were going to go, but we didn't want to hike because we were so tired. Anyways we went to Banos because it is famous for it's own volcano that creates hot springs. I was determined to go because I've never been to one and everyone bails out on me when I get a group to go with me. These hot springs were special because the Virgin Mary had shown up and performed a miracle next to the pool house.
 We walked around the town, had a volcanic stone massage with a facial for $25 which was pretty good considering it wasn't really a native thing for them (massages);saw their local church and many water falls.  The thing I loved most was all the art work on the walls. Sure most people think that's trashy, but it was actual pictures instead of scribal marks.

Look Cotopaxi in the distance!

We went to this awesome  vegetarian restaurant where the owner invited you into his home and made the meal from his garden (which was quite extensive and he let us in to look at). The best thing was his cat jumped on Chante and she screamed, shoving the cat off of her as though it was a tiger. I was laughing so hard I choked. Ride home was long and relaxing and for watching almost three Transporter movies in Spanish, pretty good. Chante was shocked after third one started and asked if there really was a third one. I told her that I think there may even be a fourth.

The park where the Virgin came, next to the city laundry.

The next day we decided to stay in Quito since we had spent no time in it. We went to the National Basilica which was amazing example of architecture. I went nuts on pictures, so thank goodness for collages.  The best part of the is Basilica is that no one is there protecting you. You can climb all over this extremely tall building with no one to watch you. You could jump off because very few things are cornered off.  I never paid money to climb Notre Dame but looking from the bottom up you could see that it was roped off all over the place. There were amazing views and I was able to get a few artsy pictures. It was the most impressive thing to see in the city.

Because of the Spanish Conqustiors Quito is heavily Catholic. They could not be out done by Europe for gaudy churches. I liked their churches better because they weren't competing with other European countries for which decoration or feat in church was better. It was more "I love my church so I'm going to put every single precious thing I own into it whether it is necessary or matches the current style of the building." The pretension was missing, that was it. Even though it wasn't my style of gaudy; it worked.

Moor Architecture right of the Independence Square

Cathedral of Quito

The last day we were there we went up to the TeleferiQo which is a tram that takes you to the tallest mountain/volcano in the city. Again picture crazy, but the mountain was 13,000 feet. The Flight Attendant in me needed a picture of me on my phone since most of the cell towers were on this mountain. We could hike higher than that, but we didn't really want to because it was so cold, despite the sunshine.  We found ourselves walking a few feet and our ears would be popping. You kind of have to be fit to live in this city.  I will say that I didn't have pressurization problems at work for like a week after this trip.

Using my cell phone above 10,000 feet.

You could hike up to that top mountain.

The crazy part of this touristy place was a church. They didn't even really have a touristy place except a gift shop and food, but there was a place to worship. A nice place too. I don't know if people came up Sunday and worshiped cause they would literally be closer to God or why it was even there.

It was hard to get pictures because the clouds kept getting in the way of Cotopaxi, tallest Volcano in the country.

After the TeleferiQo, we bummed around old town and had a run in with the gypsies.  They were shoes clearing boys. The only English words they knew were "We need money for lunch!" they said this as they were eating ice cream. We (Chante) talked to them, they said they came from school, clearly not in any of the uniforms we watched kids from school walk around in (our apartment was near an academy), and it was to early for them to be out of school and they were dirty; we knew they were gypsies.  They kept trying to talk us into getting our shoe shined even though we had running shoes on.  Finally I caved because they entertained me and I would pay for that. They wanted to charge me $5 for a shoe shine and probably for each boy to do a shoe. We both scoffed at that, but I told them I would pay a $1 for the whole process (50 cents per boy). As they were doing their job some man came and started to yell at the older boy, the boy yelled back. The man came and stomped on the boys ice cream cone (he'd put it down on the ground while he worked). I was shocked and yelled "hey" the boy really started to yell bac. The man came and hit the boy. Chante and I then both yelled "Hey stop that! Don't hit him. Leave sir." The man said "You dont' know who they are. You don't know." I said " Yes I know who they are. I've got it under control. I understand what's going on. Just leave." He left, but our fun was ruined. I wouldn't let the boys finish their job. I pulled out my dollar coin and handed it to the older boy. He quickly took it. The younger boy asked for his dollar and then whined when I wouldn't give him one. I told him that wasn't the deal. He whined and whined until I look at the older boy and asked for the dollar back so I could split it (come to find out it was all we had and couldn't split it) the boy said no. He and I argued (and I was pissed at his selfishness) until he was made a mistake and dropped the coin while he was cleaning up and I snatched it back. The younger boy magically produced two 50 cent pieces once he found out I didn't have change. I gave them each one and sent them on their way. It was an adventure for sure.

Quito, Ecaudor

When I go on my plus one vacations, I always want to go some where exotic. I am trying to go to every continent. I picked Ecuador solely for no visa in South America with the added bonus that it was below the equator. I later found out it used the US dollar. Do you know how nice it is not to exchange your money? You actually know how much your spending. I spent less than $400. Crazy huh. You would be amazed at people asking you why Ecuador, so now you know.

Our first day Chante and I went straight from work to Quito and arrived that night. I can't believe how quick it is to get to Quito. It is the same distance as Atlanta to LA. I thought I was going somewhere crazy far with bad jet lag, but I stayed in the same timezone and was only tired because it was midnight. I think I will go to South America more often!

We almost broke the bathroom door because it slides instead of opening. 

Saturday night entertainment outside our apartment.

Couldn't start a fire though.

Local tagging art.

Our first adventure was getting a taxi to downtown Quito, the taxi driver didn't know where our apartment was, we had to go online since no one knew the address, and find landmarks before someone could get us there. Our apartment was nice and cheap. It made us feel like we lived in the city and had followed someone home. It was cold at night as they didn't have central heating and on top of crazy high mountains, but we loved it. We had to deal with pressurization just walking the uphill in the streets. It was a good thing both of us were use to quick altitude changes.

The disturbing thing about the bathroom was the huge windows from the bathroom leading to a courtyard. There were no curtains, it made it a very "free" experience when showering and going to the bathroom. I have a slight obsession with bathrooms in foreign countries since it is the same act, but people have many ways and accessories on how you do it.The neighborhood we were in was a touristy area because everything was more expensive and more nice looking. It also was an arty area where there was a community center that had art classes, salsa dancing, and yoga. There was tagging and wall art with night entertainment. It was also super safe as cops were just walking around keeping peace. Another surprising thing was how many women were police. We even met some people from Mexico who came to train with their police.

Otavalo Market and Town

We went to Otavalo our first full day since it was all about the Saturday market.  We had to take the bus two hours north of Quito. The public transport is crazy awesome. My brother-in-law, who lived there, said to take the bus every where, but I thought it was like American buses, very few not very often.  Instead it was nice motor coaches that left every five to ten minutes. At the market we found locally made woven scarfs, beading, carved spoons, chess sets, and my favorite yarn! Oh how I love yarn. I was so excited I forgot to take a picture of the stall. We only saw one stall, but the rain had come out and people were packing up so there may have been more yarn stalls.  I bought 9 yarns for $11 bucks. The stall owner thought he hit the jackpot because I didn't even bargain. I spent way more on yarn earlier in the week, so we both were happy. This is not the end of my yarn obsession because I found the yarn shops in old town and spent two days buying yarn. I ended up with 20 balls. I still don't know how I got it all home because I was packed so tight before I even got there. We had to spend some of our nights winding yarn. Chante was such a  good sport to help me wind, of course she got four projects made for her, so it worked out. We had heard that there was a great leather town, Cotacachi. We got a taxi and drove up a beautiful windy road with some street food we found in Otavalo. I was able to get a purse, a clutch, and some completely impractical leather shoes.  I ended up spending $75 total; it was awesome. A bit high class touristy, but a great little city.

Hmm Food

This day taught us many things such as the wonderful public transport, but that Ecuadorans like mixing things together. Out street meat was a variation of what we ate the entire time. Chicken (on the bone and it was fried and tasted unreal...when was the last time I had a real piece of chicken on the bone?) with some veg such as shaved cabbage, mayo, rice, and fries. Fries don't really seem like they mix with rice, but somehow it does. We may have changed our meat, but we always had our rice and fries. Other thing I loved was fresh potato, plantain, and taro chips on the street. I had taro chips at Kroger in their chic health food section and they are pretty good, so when I saw them I went nuts.


Our next day was Sunday, so we went to church in Quito. It was great because the ward was so warm and happy that we were there. I had no idea what was said since I had no Spanish experience, but I did know the word Mariposa, butterfly, which someone said during their talk. Chante was my translator she was working off of one semester of Spanish. It was funny because my second language was French and Chante's was Croatian, so we would flip into that when we were trying to communicate. People would give us strange looks, but were kind and tried to keep talking to us until we understood each other.

After church we took the bus to Mitad de Mundo, the middle of the earth, the day before the fall equinox, which doesn't really make a difference when you are at the equator, but I thought it was cool to see it during that time anyways.  We didn't go to the original monument set up in 1736 because it was a tourist trap and there was museum that was roughly 50 feet away that GPS had plotted as the real equator. Which considering technology 200 meters off is not too bad. I guess it has even moved from there according to Wikipedia. They also had a cultural museum attached and we learn about burial grounds, the shrunken head tribe of the Amazon. It was ridiculous fun and I was glad we went to the little museum instead of the park with a big monument, with no experiments.

This is suppose to be a child's shrunken head.

I didn't edit, but this is me trying to walk the equator straight and can't do it! It was the best experiment of them all. It was crazy because you could kind of feel the pull of each pole on  you while you try to walk straight.

Throwback Halloween

Treat or treating gang. Yep I'm a hobbit before they were cool.

Horehound delights

Yep this is what happens when your bored at the Ceader City Shakespeare festival and you buy the "traditional" candy.

Throwback Lost! Call The FBI!

This is outside of the castle where Sleeping Beauty, the legend, was written.  Earlier that week I had been traveling, on my bike, to get from one strange French town to another medieval French town. I realized that I was lost in some woods. I started to laugh because a friend warned me that this was not a good plan to go by myself and she wanted to know where I was going, if I got lost she could call the FBI to have them come find me.  Luckily I found my way, after much crying and freaking out.

Throwback WWll

Dresden in 2003. Opa's home town still devastated by the war.