Art Gallery Opening

I mentioned in a previous post about bumping into a new art gallery last week. Yesterday evening was its grand opening, and as promised we were there. Take a look at the size of the crowd and how cool the art is.

Anybody out there have contacts in the art world? This caliber of work deserves a broader audience.

And just to prove we were really there (we always seem to be holding wine glasses----).

Afterwards we strolled to dinner with friends in the cool night air. I remarked that it's so easy to take our remarkable expat lives for granted. How often in our previous world did we say, "Oh, nothing special planned tonight. Just meeting friends at the opening of an art gallery then walking to dinner in the historic district." Uh, like----never.

Our lives here truly are a blessing.

Ecuador's Real Religion

Holy Week has come and gone. As I showed in my last post thousands of Ecuadorians were visiting local churches and celebrating the holiday in various ways. But while the population is 95% Catholic, we learned yesterday what the country's real religion is.

We needed to go to the IESS (Social Security) hospital for some follow-up appointments.

Since it was mid-afternoon we were surprised that our normally busy street was almost deserted and it took awhile to flag down a taxi. Once we arrived there wasn't the normal hustle bustle of patients and doctors, but the lobby area was unusually packed. What was going on?

We looked up at the TV on the wall and immediately got our answer. Undefeated Ecuador was playing Columbia in soccer. I have a blasphemous confession to make--we're not fans of the sport and had no idea the game was in progress.

My British son-in-law has tried his best to get me interested in soccer. But as I've explained to him, Americans generally support sports that we invented. And on a personal level, I'm no more a fan of a pitchers' duel in baseball or a defensive struggle in football than I am of a game where guys kick a ball around for an hour and a half to end up with a 1-1 tie. Give me points and lots of them!

Ecuadorians live and die by their team, and I'm sure this attitude is reflected throughout Latin America. When a game is being televised during the day business grinds to a halt and locals are crowded around television screens all over the city.

There were so many people watching the game in the lobby that someone at the hospital finally turned off the TV so doctors and patients would return to the health care business they were all there for. We saw our physicians much quicker than normal and were soon on our way.

So here's an "insider tip" for you--schedule appointments on game day for super-quick service. If your doctor actually shows up and isn't watching the team somewhere else, that is------.

P.S. Ecuador lost 3-1, but somehow the sun came up this morning and life goes on.

Visit to the Seven Churches

Every year before Easter as many as 10,000 Catholics hit the streets of Cuenca to participate in Maunday Thursday. This tradition dates back to Roman times when Christian pilgrims visited the city's seven basilicas as an act of penance. Cuenca attracts thousands of visitors for this event because of the proximity of churches in the historic district.

Cynthia and I happened to be downtown on Thursday at a going away party for friends who are moving to Spain. When we left the restaurant at around 10 PM we were stunned to find the streets absolutely packed with pedestrians. We'd never done the seven churches walk before and spontaneously decided, "What the heck, we're here--let's do it!"

I happened to have my camera with me so here are some photos:

Vendors were everywhere making sure no one was hungry.

Here's the New Cathedral under a full moon.

As this is by far our biggest church there were tons of people going in and out.

Some other shots from churches along the way.

Many of our churches are beautifully lit at night, but we discovered they must be on timers that go off at 10:30. I wish I had a better photo for you.

We made it to five churches before heading home. On the way we crossed the Tomebamba river

and walked down our very quiet street after a busier than expected evening.

The Joys of Wandering Around

One of the joys of pedestrian life is you never know what you might encounter when you're out wandering around. I offer you last night as a prime example.

We met great friends for an amazing meal at Trattoria Novecento, a gorgeous restaurant in Hotel Santa Lucia.

I don't throw around words like "amazing" when it comes to the food here in Cuenca because quite honestly the cuisine doesn't often measure up to U.S. standards. But Cynthia's salmon and roasted veggies and my pepper-encrusted steak with mushroom risotto were both spot-on. Here's a shot of our mozzarella and prosciutto salad.

Afterwards the plan was to attend a special choral production nearby in the Old Cathedral that we had read about. When we got there about twenty minutes early the church was dark and the gates were locked. Not promising----

While waiting outside "just in case," we noticed well-dressed people coming in and out of the beautiful building across from the church.

Were we mistaken about the concert's location? Curious, we went inside and found folks standing around chatting and sipping wine.

Looking into the empty auditorium we discovered a presentation had just taken place for members of the Judicial Council. Not sure what that organization is but we figured, what the hell, the concert's not happening and we're here, so let's have a glass of wine and do a bit of chatting ourselves. Which is exactly what we did.

We soon parted company because our friends had an early start the next day. Cynthia and I weren't really ready to call it a night and decided to walk to a symphony performance that was on the way home anyway.

En route we bumped into a fab new art gallery, Galeria del Artista, and detoured a few minutes to check it out.

The owner was quite gracious and invited us to the gallery's grand opening next Friday night. Art--live jazz--wine--cheese--put that one on the calendar!

Oops-time for the concert to start. We hustled down the street and luckily snagged two great seats on the first row of the balcony just as the lights went down. We were treated to an Easter extravaganza featuring the full orchestra, a beautiful violin virtuosa, 60 member mixed choir, and four solo vocalists. Wow! And as usual, completely free of charge.

Strolling home afterwards it would have been easy to conclude we were under the spell of the full moon overhead. Except the truth is, because we often find ourselves walking around in such an interesting city, cool stuff like what I've described happens to us all the time.

Photos courtesy of Cheri Edwards and Jadwiga Rytych.

The Best Advice about Ecuador

I've written before about the sage advice given to me years ago by a Cuencana: "Try to get one thing a day done here. Everything else is a bonus."

But sometimes there's more than one thing that needs to get done. We had a busy afternoon planned a few days ago--eat lunch, purchase a baby gift for the baptism celebration featured in the previous post (if you didn't see it for sure go back and take a look!), buy groceries, shoot home and put them away, then turn around and leave again for Cynthia's followup eye appointment. Trust me, trying to get that much done in only a few hours is asking for trouble.

Sure enough, as we ate at San Pedro, the organic restaurant I wrote about recently,

rain started falling in buckets. We lingered until it tapered off, then headed over to the children's clothing store in the small mall on the ground floor beneath the Supermaxi.

Even though we've lived here a long time we sometimes forget we're actually in Ecuador, which in this case means we neglected to remember that all the retail stores are closed from 1 to 3. (Sigh) This immediately threw us into scramble mode, because now we had to skip the gift buying and double back after the doctor's appointment. (Double Sigh)

So--new plan. Grocery shop---oh, quick aside. After months of being MIA, Peter Pan peanut butter finally arrived back on the shelves. Don't know how many gringos are fans of the honey roast variety but even at this ridiculous price I'm guessing it will all be scooped up.

---taxi home--haul everything upstairs--back downstairs--taxi to her appointment at Exilaser. Dig Cynthia's groovy post-op sunglasses.

Doctor Miotto declared the surgery a complete success, which Cynthia demonstrated by easily reading so much further down the eye chart than ever before that I was blown away. After she gets the other eye done in a couple of months she'll never need contact lenses again (which she's worn since her early twenties). Now that's impressive!

After the appointment we trudged through the rain, which had started again, back to the clothing store, then walked home as the precipitation had thankfully stopped.

Nobody felt like making dinner after all that running around so we had a margarita, went up the street to a Mexican place for food and another margarita to celebrate Cynthia's good news plus just making it through the day, came home for an episode of Downton Abbey and an early bedtime.

Mi amiga was right, but sometimes you have to suck it up and pay the price.

Wow!!

Dear friends invited us to a luncheon celebrating the baptism of their grandson. We didn't really know what to expect. I'll let these photos tell the story.

Needless to say, we had an amazing day and are so grateful to have been part of this fabulous event.