I Think, Therefore I'm Late

I’ve been in Ecuador for almost a month. I arrived in Miami a month ago so you could say I’ve been in Spanish speaking country for over a month. My Spanish has gotten better. I can stumble around more stuff and get more information out of people. I have definitely improved but I have yet to find any group of friends to speak Spanish with all the time.

The friends I make at school are all traveling throughout the country or the continent and are lots of fun on Friday but are usually gone by Sunday. I’ve made a few observations in my first month here (more to come soon) and here is a Salsa update (separate post):

¡Hora Ecuadora!

So if Spanish has a word for “coordination,” the Ecuadorians don’t know it. Not only that but they have actually taken a stance against the idea. Don’t worry about when your neighborhood coffee shops are open because they aren’t worried either. I wouldn’t call any of them morning people. Few shops open before nine. My eyes don’t open before nine (OK, my door doesn’t open til around nine. I rise at 8 and read some articles in my room but don’t tell the kids) so I am not really one to talk BUT it’s weird. (By the way “coordination” in Spainsh is “coordinación”)

We want to go see a soccer game and hear we can go in two weeks. Two weeks later – no news or notifications. The game starts at 7:00 or 8:00 the clerk says. The game starts at 6:00 or 7:00 the bartender says. The game starts at 5:00 of 6:00 waitress says… Hmm. So we are pretty sure there is a game. It will most likely start. When getting ready we figure we’ll bring lunch, dinner, a tent, a flint, a fishing pole and a spear. Just in case. Turns out we didn’t need any of that! It was an Away game.

Bus routes change without people knowing. On 3 separate occasions the Spanish teacher, salsa teacher, and cooking teacher did not show.

Hours of operation? You’re as likely to find hours of operation at Chernobyl as you are here.

South American Wine and Coffee!!!

Never during my first 18 years of existence did I acquire a taste for coffee. Never since my first college exam have I stopped drinking it. Yes, it’s cliché; whatever. But seriously, I wonder how the market for coffee has changed since the market for a college education has changed. That’s for another blog post I guess (more likely another blog) but interesting.

The Montana State University Library has one of the more cleaver names for a coffee shop/stand I have seen: The Brewed Awakening. Makes me chuckle. Anyways, their coffee is pretty average. It’s not terrible for a university, I guess. But I am going to South America. No more Folgers in my cup. Bring on Colombian coffee. I want Pablo Escobar to get off his high donkey and serve this gringo a good cup of Joe.

Unfortunately the new President is a Socialist and very little of anything comes in and what does is very expensive. Unfortunately this applies to wine as well as the Ecuadorians haven’t yet figured that one out as well. I guess its latitudes are not conducive making wine. This makes me a sad panda.

My proximity to Chile and Argentina rendered useless (well, expensive), I have resorted to the supermarket box wine. It’s not bad and it’s fairly priced. Anything good here starts around $15 a bottle and given that things are generally 1/3 the price of those in the U.S., (remember three-course lunches are $1.50) it ends up being pretty expensive. And lets face it. I’m 22. I am not above a box of wine. In fact, I’m actually right next to one.

8,300 ft. From Out of Shape…

I have always been a decent athlete. Never excelled in any one sport but I wasn’t bad at any of them. (SALSA DANCING IS NOT A SPORT!) I was once a little more active than I am now. I’d like to contribute that to getting older and busier but the truth is I’m only 22 and I really just placed an extra emphasis on a social life and then unusual hours working at a bar didn’t help.

Even then I could still run around and I deemed myself to still be athletic. In Bozeman, which sits at just below 5,000 ft. (and the nearby Bridger Mountain Range rises to about 10,000) the altitude was never an issue. I came and went from Phoenix (just above 1,100 ft.) and never knew the difference.

It actually was a little bit of a shock living at 8,300. I went on the run the second day. My back was hurting within a block and come the first hill, my lungs called for a timeout. Everyday I walk to school (or take a bus halfway when I’m running late) and there is a pretty large staircase going into El Centro. I’m 30 for 30 for sweating and taking a second to let the car or squirrel pass by when I get to the top.

Last weekend I played basketball with some locals. I scored six of the first eight points then scored two for the rest of the game (playing til 30). I was maybe the best player on the court (granted there were only six guys on the court) for the first 90 seconds and then by the end of the game they were screaming at me, “Mas marco!” which basically means stop being lazy and play defense.

Even though I haven’t been nearly as active as I would like for the last few months, I was never in terrible shape. But at 8,300 ft… I’m in terrible shape.