clara-T

clara-T

02 June 2009

hemispheric limbo episode 1: the window-washer gets her fruit

Hola queridos!

Greetings from Quito! I finally reached on Sunday just before midnight, after wandering airports all day getting strange looks for carrying around a window fan in a box, and being forced to wear a mask to prevent "influenza porcina" from entering Ecuador. (Guess what that means!)

This is a city of beautiful weather, beautiful flowers, beautiful fruits. I woke up yesterday morning and walked outside to find myself surrounded by a yard of every-colored flowers and a bunch of different kinds of fruit trees! Blackberries, avocado, lemon, and some other native fruits. Lori and Juan Miguel live in a valley 600m below the city called Cumbayá, where the weather is perfect all day long -- sunny and the perfect amount of breezy, probably around 70 F. I woke up this morning to fresh blended passion fruit (maracuyá)-banana juice, and some of you know that I have been craving passion fruit juice for about two months now. I am a lucky girl.

I came to the hotel for the first time this morning, got the tour -- it is a beautiful homestyle boutique hotel called Casa Foch, with lots of woodwork and carefully selected color schemes in each room. The rooms are themed and decorated according to their corresponding element of nature. My favorite is Astromelia (some kind of flower) which is on the top floor, decorated in an unobtrusive orange. I spent today washing windows. Tons of them. They are beautiful windows (more beautiful now!) but I never want to see a bottle of window cleaner ever again. In fact, why don't you just keep me away from windows for the rest of my life.

Kidding! I'm still getting settled, but I am definitely missing my people (y'all) and hoping to get updates back on anything, everything, and nothing you all are doing while I'm chilling on the equator.

Chauchau,
Clarita

Next Episode: Snail mail! The Lost Art of Webpage Writing. Spanish Faux Pas (Hopefully Not!) AND... Making Friends in a Strange Land.

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