Sunday Night - Monday at the Office - More Apartment Shopping

I spent Sunday evening (last night) dropping in on a wedding at the hotel. I heard the band playing in the patio, so I decided to pay a visit. I put on a nice suit and headed downstairs not knowing exactly what to expect. They had a Latin band and dancing going on just outside the main banquet room. I hung out and watched that for a bit, had a glass of sangria, and then decided not crash any of the eating and drinking activities going on in the banquet room. The most amazing thing to me was the floral arrangements. Since Ecuador is such a large producer and exporter of flowers, they are beautiful and really inexpensive here. The arrangements were amazing. There were two, large, rose tower arrangements that stood about 5 feet tall and, I'm guessing conservatively, had about 500 roses each! The table arrangements had birds of paradise and some other really pretty, tropical flowers that I could not even begin to I identify. 

I decided to head up to the bar/restaurant on the top floor and, on the way up in the elevator, I met two interesting guys from Holland. To make a long story short, it turns out they are both commercial pilots. They fly the world conducting trainings and piloting airplanes --some passenger and some cargo --but mostly they are trainers.  They have even been to Texas to conduct trainings at the air force base in Wichita Falls.  They didn't have a great impression of Texas or Southern Oklahoma and joked back and forth with me about how many dead cows they spotted from the air when they were there.  One of them told me he started teaching land navigation by referencing the dead cows! In their former lives, the were both in the Dutch air force (one was a major and the other was a colonel) and high level NATO officers. One of them, Bob (which I'm sure is just a nickname), served a three-year tour of duty in Kosovo. Bob had a passion for law, though he told me he had only studied it briefly in military school, while Rutger was just naturally inquisitive. We wound up spending nearly three hours talking about Latin America, Europe, politics, world affairs, flying, and law. Thoroughly fascinating evening. Really interesting and cool guys.

First thing this morning I got up, ate breakfast, checked email, answered a few calls from the states, and set out for my first full day at the office. It consisted of a long planning meeting, followed by a telephone conference with the office in Washington, D.C. Throughout the day I had assorted people drop in to meet me, including the chief prosecutor of the special victims unit in Quito (to discuss training courses for her division) and the director of communications for our project (to discuss web page development and my interview schedule/press tour for next week). It appears they want me to hit the ground running, so they have lined up interviews for me all next week with the leading newspapers and T.V. stations.

In the afternoon, I slipped out for some apartment shopping and found an O.K. place (read 'not my style, but workable'), but the owner was really worried about Jackson. She did not come right out and say she would not allow him there, but she hinted pretty strongly by asking if it would be better for him to stay on the patio (I told her no!), whether he could stay in his kennel in the garage (NO!!!), and whether she could come by during the day to be sure he was not damaging anything (again, no). I did explain that he is well trained and will not harm anything, but she seemed unconvinced. I suspect if she gets any other takers, she will jump on them and the apartment will be rented out from under me. No biggie, though, since I'm not crazy about it.

After a couple of other hours at the office reading to prepare for meetings tomorrow, I headed off for more apartment hunting --this time with the sweet, well-meaning, but unorganized woman from Saturday. Two places were washouts: one landlord was a no show and the other was a place that looked like granny had decorated it. The third place is a definite possibility! Really nice, loft-like space. It has no view, but the space is modern, clean, cool, and nicely finished. The neighborhood is considered very nice, though a bit congested for my taste, and the buildings look upscale-modern. It is not furnished, so I'd have to deal with that, but at least it has light fixtures, a washer/dryer, and blinds. I'm going out tomorrow again to look at a few other places and I hope this madness will end soon and I find the right place.

I went out this evening to dinner with a couple of guys from the Embassy for 'traditional Ecuadorian' food. We had some type of a hominy dish, beans, white rice with peas, lightly battered and fried fish, fried plantains, some of the best ceviche I've ever had, and a salad with peas, corn, beets, and heart of palms. Really great food, but way more than I wanted. I think the food I've had here is really good and the fish is very fresh. No complaints about the food from me!

Enjoy the panoramic picture of the Quito skyline, the 'Panecillo' hill with the statue of the Virgin of Quito, and drop by here again soon for more details.