What I will miss from Ecuador.

Oh my god, there is too many things to mention Quito has been the most amazing place to live. I don’t know if it’s more to do with the wonderful friends I have made here or the incredible setting and atmosphere of this crazy city, whatever it is down to it has been the perfect mix of everything.

 Something I truly love about Ecuador is the fact you can buy almost anything on the buses or from the bus window! 

From dollar CD’s of pipe music ballads with all the old classics including my personal favourite ‘The power of love’ played by small unhappy looking Peruvian men, health vitamins ( that always promise to make me younger looking and never do the job!) and this is my personal favourite hologram pictures that everyone on the bus is just in awe of . I am not sure if this is a new concept here but remember the in the 80’s when everyone had them really tacky holograms of super ted or banana man, that when you moved them it was freaking amazing because the photo changed! Well they have arrived here and have photo’s Jesus on….. And oh my they love them, look its Jesus and now its saint Christopher!      

Now on to food as most of you know I cannot cook, well ok I can I just don’t want to! Eating is just one of those things you have to do to …..well live, I have a small dislike for all people who like to tell you in great detail about what particular herbs went into the dish they have cooked for you and which famous chef’s recipe it is. Yes, I go down a storm at dinner parties when I finish and announce that it was great it really filled a hole. However, here in Ecuador there is no messing around, at lunch times you go into an Almuerzo restaurant tell them you want to eat and they bring you a big plate of whatever they have made in bulk that day. Lovely! Normally they start with a soup and sometimes your lucky enough to find a chickens foot at the bottom, the first couple of time this freaked me out now I consider it lucky. Then onto a big plate of unidentified meat, veggies, rice and potatoes ( yes everything comes with carb overload). Finished off with a nice little scoop of ice-cream, all for the grand price of $2.50.  For this reason I just don’t cook here, why bother? Back in the UK I think I will have a couple of problems but I am sure my mother will not mind cooking, washing and ironing for her little girl again……! For all of you who know my mother will be laughing at this, last time I went home I put my dirty washing into the basket in the bathroom like I always used to do but nothing came back in those nice little ironed bundles. So I ask my mum hey what’s happing in the washing department in chez Agnes? Her reply was- Are those lazy little elf’s not working hard enough for you?

So I guess I have to learn how to cook and do my own washing, so rude!

Another thing is cleaning my own shoes, I know I am beginning to sound like a princess right now. Oh that’s another thing I know I blogged about the fact I hate Ecuadorian men calling my Princesa, Hermosa and Guapa, but my god when I start dating back in the UK I know they will not be calling my Beautiful princess. More like- darling fetch me another beer from the fridge. Don’t worry the reply will be F*$k off! Anyway back to cleaning my own shoes, there is a kid outside my work everyday and everyday he always spots me from no matter what the distance and shouts-‘ sucio! Sucio!’ in literal translation this is ‘dirty!dirty!’ he is referring to my shoes but Jesus kid! Most mornings I am running late so cant get him to clean my shoes which seems to anger him in knowing I will be walking around with dirty shoes all day. So every morning he shouts DIRTY at me and I am shouting ‘Tranquil Flaco’ with the whole street staring at us. But I do feel I will even miss this daily confrontation!   

 All in all Ecuador you have been a blast and an amazing experience, I will take away some unbelievable memories. Some I want to forget like being pissed on by a sleeping child on a long distance bus or all the times I have stood in the longest queues to be told wrong information or just simply told to come back tomorrow. However, I love you!   

Positive of returning to Carlisle

Ok there are a lot of positives I just have to really think about it, the obvious is seeing friends and family. Already I have been offered so many places to stay and enough dinners to feed Africa. It’s been almost 2 years since I have seen most of these friends but yet when we talk it’s as if I seen them yesterday. As much as I complain about Brampton being the smallest and most gossipy town in the world I love the fact I know everyone and they know me. It always take hour to walk down the main street due to people stopping you to just chat or to tell you what Mrs brown on the estate has been doing…. There are a lot of crazy people in Brampton so I mostly enjoy hearing these stories.

However, one of the biggest highlights is Lexi’s fridge, my best friend Lexi has the best fridge in not just Cumbria but the world!  It is always pack full of the greatest stuff. Every time I go round I find myself heading straight for her fridge and helping myself to that weeks delights. So on to food, England has some of the worst food in the world but hell its so bad for you its great. I love asking French people so what do you think of our food? Have you tried fish and chips wrapped in newspaper? Then watching their faces crumple with what can only be described as sheer disgust. Personally I cant wait to eat a full English, Pie’s, pickled onion monster munch and all washed down with a cold cider. Oh the pride of Britain!

Couple of other things I know all fellow Brit’s living abroad will understand- BBC Iplayer, ease of life (even in current economical situations), Primark, Tesco and road etiquette.

Oh I will arrive in time for Halloween which is cute and everything but even better Bombie night! How freaking great is Bombie night? No matter how old you are there is nothing better than being stood there in the freezing cold with sparkler in one hand (writing your name over and over, Michelle is far too long but shell is now down to a fine art) and a hot cider in the other. Watching the Catherine wheel and making wooo ahhhh sounds to every bang.

Guys cant wait to see you all but remember this excitement of being home with only last about a week ( like a child I only have a short attention span) after this I will need you to keep me entertained.            

Living life in a bubble

I haven’t written in a long time I know what this is down to and I guess when you’re happy not thinking about your future it’s easy to say your happy. Right now I feel content and fortunate with my life here, to get to this point I had to stop thinking about what has happened and what will happen. However, as the date of my flight home becomes closer I keep having more freak out moments. So how to deal with that? Just say yes! Hell yes its back!

So in the last two weeks I have been Salsa Dancing, Learning to cook and to more fiestas than Liam Gallagher! To the surprise of most people I returned to Banos and climbed up some really big hills and trees then zip lined down them, to anyone that knows me knows this is something I would never even consider. I have the biggest fear of heights! I remember once in South Africa a girl asking me to just come with her to take photos of her doing a bungee jump, this ended in me hyperventilating on a bridge surrounded by all the staff getting me to breathe deeply into a paper bag! She was not best please to say the least. However, this time I decided I have faced worse and what could go seriously wrong? I loved it! It was incredible the feeling of free flying through the beautiful cloud forest.

Then onto the next fear….. getting on the back of a motorbike and heading up a volcano! Why I hear you ask? No idea but once again a fantastic experience, I even wanted to drive ( do you drive or ride, oh whatever just get on it full throttle).Thankfully he didn’t let me as we all know this is a bad idea really!

Then back to the beautiful Mindo for a spot of Tubing, what is tubing? You sit in an inflated tracker tyre and zoom down the river rapids….. feaking amazing! I laughed the whole way. We noticed in Mindo everything is in the present continuous for example Tubing, Walking, Canopying and so on. So for the rest of the weekend everything we done had to end in ING, siestaing and churching sounded a little weird but the drinking and dancing came easier.

So what next? After a little push ok a big push from Jo I have finally sat down and started to plan my return to the UK. I have enrolled on a creative writing course and have started to write a children’s book. I love the fact I can write whatever I want in this book and not have to explain why the main characters best friend is a talking cat and his mother is a dragon, its my imaginary world and I make the rules!

So back to the UK for a couple of months and then next adventure Spain. I haven’t really thought about Spain and as with everything in my life I will just wing it and see what comes. This has worked for the last 32 years so lets keep hitting and hoping!

One thing I am looking forward to is seeing my wonderful best friend getting married and I am so proud to be her maid of honour. Lexi I promise not to get as drunk as I did at Kiera’s christening, even though Hannah is trying to be a bad influence!    

See you all in October