I finally got a camera last week on Friday, even though retrieving it ended up to not be an easy process. Nothing is easy in Ecuador; any bureaucracy seems to be completely inefficient. I got up early so I could be at the package place at 8:30 when they opened, figuring it couldn't take more than a few minutes. When I arrived they were still in the process of opening. After waiting a bit I gave my slip to the woman, and she told me she needed two copies of my passport. Ok. I asked her where a copy place was, and she must have been in a good mood because she went and made the copies for me. Then more waiting. At last a guy took me into a room to open the package and looked at him. He and the other guy were really concerned because it said it should be worth 200.00. They looked and all they saw was candy, I wisely decided not to say anything. They felt badly for me and at first reduced it to 50.00, then to 30.00 The taxes would have originally be around 80, and ended up 20, so that was nice. Now that I look back I think the man saw the camera but pretended not to. This was about an hour into the process. They gave me a sheet of paper and said to go to the bank and pay the tax. This is pretty typical here, and is really a pain. A 15 minute walk later I was in line at the bank, I paid and walked back. More waiting gave the man my slip that said I paid, then had to go sign some things, wait some more, and at last was given my package. I arrived at work at about 10:30, a full two hours later. Luckily there was a huge bag of M&Ms in the package, so no one at all cared I was late.

That night I just hung out with some work people. We went to find food by the Plaza de Torros, and John convinced me to eat what I call street meat. It has a name, but I always forget it, he loves it. Basically there is this little tiny restaurant, and outside is a grill and a bucket of shish kabobs with just meat. You pay a dollar inside, go hand the guy a voucher, and wait for him to cook your meat. All I could think is I do not want to know how long that has been there. When it is done they slather some green stuff on it, and hand it to you. It was decent, I did not like the two chunks of sausage, but the beef was not bad. Sort of like beef jerky to be honest. That is the nice thing about being here for awhile, I can eat pretty much anything and not get sick. I can even drink the water. I have been told the water in Quito is fine, just don't drink water outside of the city.

Saturday I got up early to go to Otavalo, which is a town about 2 hours away. Jorge, me and Caroline went, and Jorge was nice enough to drive. The ride up was beautiful, Ecuador truly is a gorgeous country. We arrived at about 10:00, and mostly just walked around. Both Jorge and Caroline love taking pictures and have super nice cameras, so they took loads of pictures. I mostly looked around. It was so busy, and there were so many types of things, it was definitely interesting. We returned home at about 4, stopping at this lake for awhile, which was nice.

Since I have a camera now, I have pictures, but the internet is being mean right now. I will post them tomorrow I promise!



Sunday I went to Paul and Katie's house for a Barbeque. It was a really sunny warm day, perfect for the event. We hung out there until about 6 or so. The highlight for me was calling Grandma and my Aunt Kathy. Paul and Katie are from Minnesota and have some sort of phone that you can call the states for free. Afterward we went to a mall and walked around, and then I came home, finished some laundry and relaxed.

We get Friday off of work, so a shorter week. Also it is Caroline's birthday on Wednesday, so I am sure we will do something fun for that.