on the bus

There are numerous sights to see on my morning bus ride from my house to school everyday. These "diversions" include but are not limited to:

1. The lady who walks her two goats down the sidewalk in the middle of the city. Keep in mind, there is no grass anywhere nearby.
   
2. The older man who does exercises near the highway underpass/overpass every morning. He seems to have just finished a walk/run and usually is doing push-ups or something along those lines.
3. The interesting graffiti that provides reading material on the way to school. My favorite translates to "Weapons of mass destruction: TV, Radio, Press."

spare change

One of my colleagues published this article about the dollar situation in Ecuador on CnnTraveller. It's pretty interesting, and pretty cool that I know the writer. http://www.cnntraveller.com/2009/05/13/a-fistful-of-dollars/

quite a show

This Wednesday, I went to the performance of Manuela y Bolivar, an opera about the relationship between Manuela Saenz and Simon Bolivar, who both fought for Ecuador's independence from Spain. We typically don't have many operas here, and the ones that do play here are typically expensive for the quality of production. As this opera was pretty relevant to the history of Ecuador, I really wanted to see it, regardless of ticket price. Several of my friends and I met before the opera at the cafe across the plaza from the theatre for a light dinner. We had a great view out of the second floor window, and watched as a protest began in front of the theatre. The protest was quite different from what you would expect--a man dressed as the grim reaper on stilts and people playing drums. We were all very entertained by the spectacle, which we later discovered was in protest of the theatre being privatized. Then we noticed police cars coming up the street next to the theatre, which we assumed to be police breaking up the protest. No, it was the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, coming to the opera. Watching the two groups clash was pretty amusing. Unfortunately, the opera was not nearly as entertaining as the pre-show, but I felt that I got my money's worth just to see the grim reaper on stilts trying to get the President's attention.

how about a shoe shine?

This afternoon I ended up in the historic center of Quito in a quest for opera tickets. Unfortunately, the theatre box office was closed, but as we were already there, my friend Carrie and I decided to take advantage of the people shining shoes in the street. The boy shining my shoes asked if I wanted him to use the paste on my shoes, and I said yes. He then removes the shoe color powder and mixes three different colors to create brown to match my tall brown boots. He used the powder and clear paste and polishes my boots. After he finished, I looked down and noticed that the lower part of my boot--the part he polished--was now a lighter shade of brown than the upper part of my boots, which had not been polished. I now have nice clean, shiny boots that I will be re-polishing with my dark brown paste before I wear them again.

to the left

I just read this very interesting article about the Socialist system in the Netherlands. I highly recommend reading it--it's a good perspective from an American expat. Life there sounds pretty good: universal healthcare, government funds for every child, good public housing. Maybe Tobey and I will look for schools in Amsterdam next year...

beach weekend

I went to the beach this weekend for the three-day Labor Day weekend. It rained. My camera and cellphone were stolen. The airline messed up our flight and we had to come home early (as in last night.) Great weekend.

(That last bit was sarcastic, by the way.)