new pad!

Sorry for the delay.  It has been an eventful week for us.  Prior to our arrival in Cuenca, we secured lodging for the first month at an extended-stay hotel of sorts on the advice of others who have traveled this road before us.  It was wonderful to have a roof over our heads and the staff there was enormously helpful in getting us on our feet (and helping us find the bus, and the grocery store, and get a taxi, and the list goes on and on…)  However, it was a 1-bedroom place with stark white walls and only 1 pretty horrifically uncomfortable couch.  And we were all sharing 1 bedroom.  And the windows rattled every time a bus or motorcycle passed by (approximately every 10 seconds).  And did I mention that we all shared 1 bedroom?  I don't like to complain, but we are just not a co-sleeping-kind-of-family.  So, if Week 1 could be summarized as "Keep our Heads Above Water", Week 2 was "Find a Permanent Place to Live."

I'm still amazed that we've only been here 2 weeks.  It feels like months.  And not in a bad way.  Every minute of every day just seems to slow down when even leaving the front door feels like an enormous task (do I remember what street I live on so that I can find my way back?  do I have enough money and the right kind of change for the bus?  do I need to look up any words in the Spanish/English dictionary prior to leaving so I can accomplish the task at hand?)  Every detail about where we've been seems enhanced.  So when we started looking for a permanent place to live, we quickly discovered the areas that we wanted to focus on.  We saw 4 places in the span of 3 days, each with very different pros and cons (all furnished).  There was the large, beautiful 2-bedroom, 2-floor penthouse in a safe neighborhood, but it was not within walking distance of any of the things we enjoyed and was on the 4th floor of a building without an elevator (I know that sounds like a lame "con", but our reality includes a 2 year-old.)  There was the brand-new, 2-bedroom condo in a great location with a gym and 24-hour doorman, but it was more expensive, didn't include internet, electricity, or water (a staple among most rentals in Cuenca) and your view was the neighbors' living room and the building under construction next door.  Also, the internal hallway to your front door felt like you were in a W Hotel… not sure if that is a pro or a con.  The third choice was never really a contender.

We finally settled on the 2-bedroom condo, in a great location (we are within 3 blocks of a market, the kids' favorite park, the Cuenca soccer stadium, and a 15-minute walk to the center of the city.)  It is on the 3rd floor and has no elevator, but this is the view:

And here are a few comparisons:

old living room

new living room

new living room

old bedroom

girls' new bedroom

our new bedroom

The major "con" so far is that the internet has only been available intermittently.  But it should be taken care of this week. In the meantime, we will begin Week 3…. 

"Find the Girls a School"

Good night!

--  Ileana

Banos.

OK OK.. I cannot give Ily a hassle for not updating the blog if I don't do my fair share as well.. So this is my first post.

Lets see, there are a few things we have done since being here that have not been touched upon yet.  One of the most memorable for me was taking Sofie and Grace to an area of Cuenca called Banos where they have warm mineral spring water pumped into several pools.  This looked appealing to us since they have a few water slides and the kids love pools... well, we boarded the number 12 bus as instructed by our wonderful hosts here at Hotel Otorongo and took the 35 minute ride to the outskirts of the city where we were dropped off at the end of the line in front of a really beautiful church with an outstanding view, photo op..  

View from Church!

Church!

The pools with the water slides are at a nice resort called Hosteria Duran... we walk to the resort and pay our 5 or 6 bucks to get in… that's 5 or 6 bucks for all 4 of us to access any of the pools we want... good deal...

"Hey Craig, should we take towels?"  Ily asks

"Nooo.. don't be silly.  This is a nice resort, they must provide towels." comes Craig's reply.

They don't provide towels. Towels cost $13.00 each.  For those of you who know me, you also know that I am relatively frugal (read: cheap) and it pained me to pay this much for one towel…  it would have killed me to buy more than one.  We can all eat a nice meal out for less than this.  So we all used the same paper thin pink towel.  Overall, great trip…

That fast one is FAST.  The slow one is... well... slow.

The other cool thing we learned on this trip was that they roast pigs in little stands throughout the city!   Those of you who know I am cheap, also know that I love to eat.  Mostly, I love to eat good meat.  Pork cooked over a fire is good meat…  We did not try this, but I can assure you that it is on my radar.  Will let you know how it is :)  Here piggy piggy piggy. (sorry to offend those non meat-eaters out there)

Meat

Sooo, we enjoyed the swim.  Enjoyed the slides for the most part.  The small pool with the slides was about 3/4 full… 

painful entrance the first and last time the fast slide was used.  

The curvy slide was the one for us… so we thought.  Turns out that the slide was apparently not designed in such a way that gravity overpowers friction.  One comes to a halt about 1/2 way down and must shimmy, or if you are 4, run the rest of the way.  Great laughs were had by all.

This fun filled morning was just the beginning that day.  We left the pools, boarded the numero doce, and headed for home.  Once the bus gets back to where we got on, we will simply get off.  Good idea in theory, not so good in practice.  Luckily, since the church is one end of the bus route, we managed to get seats and did not have to stand the entire ride.  Kids fell asleep on our laps and we enjoyed a 2 hour $0.25 tour of Cuenca.  That towel cost us 52 bus rides.  Live and learn.

Oh yeah, we got this.

"Daddy, can I crawl in your lap and sweat for 2 hours?"
"Of course you can, Sweetheart, of course you can."

Memories.

random observations…

1. If you board a bus in Cuenca holding a baby or small child, at least 5 people will pop up from their seats and insist you take it.  Even very elderly women.
2. In contrast to the courtesy of the passengers, the bus driver will accelerate as quickly as possible the moment your foot leaves the pavement upon boarding, despite said baby or small child and the 5 elderly women now standing in the aisle of the bus.
3. Impossibly high heels and painfully tight jeans are very popular among Cuencanas.
4. No matter how high the temperature reaches, most Cuencanos will continue to wear many layers of thick clothing.  To be fair, it has not exceeded 75 degrees since we've been here.
5. The people of Cuenca are some of the most generous and friendly people we've met.  They are happy to give directions or advice and they absolutely ADORE the girls, especially Gracie.  At least once per outing, someone physically touches her and makes a comment about how blue her eyes are.
6. Despite our close proximity to the equator and high altitude, sunscreen can be difficult to find and expensive.  Thanks to the Facebook Ecuador Expats group, we were prepared and brought some from home!

--  Ileana y Craig

making friends

The internet is an amazing thing.  Long before we arrived in Cuenca, we joined a Facebook group for "expats" living in Ecuador.  Through this group, we got advice on how to obtain residency visas, what to bring, where to live, etc.  We also discovered that a group of families, mostly with children, meet every Saturday afternoon at a local park.  So before we even set foot in the country, we had a playdate.  And we were all ready for it yesterday, especially the kids.  They have not been able to play with other kids since the day after Christmas when they last saw their cousins in Texas.  Craig and I really enjoy one another's company, but we were also ready to meet new people!

The meet-up location is Parque de el Paraiso and it is the largest park in Cuenca.  It is spectacular!  I chose to include this photo of the lake within the park (where you can borrow a paddleboat for free!), but it also has playground equipment, tons of bike paths and greenspaces.  We met several, very nice couples and families with children (most of the children are tweens - teens, but 1 teen girl is very interested in babysitting and took a shine to Sofia and Grace!  Yay for us!!)  One family in particular has 2 daughters, ages 6 & 8, who are currently living in Costa Rica but plan to move here in August.  An afternoon in the park turned into a walk downtown for dinner at a fantastic pizza place that will surely become a regular hangout for us.  By the end of the night, Craig and I had signed up for a book club, the girls were hugging and giggling, and we all felt just a tiny bit "at home" here in Cuenca.

A game of "I-spy" before dinner

It is awesome how quickly kids make friends!

--  Ileana

1st few days

The New Cathedral of Cuenca, as seen from Parque Calderon

We have been trying to explore the city as much as possible these first few days, balancing the needs of the adults with the kids.  Our first stop was El Centro (the old historic section of the city.)  The most iconic building in Cuenca is  the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, more commonly referred to as the New Cathedral of Cuenca, and it is easily recognizable from many points around the city by its beautiful blue domes.  It is situated across from one of the busiest parks, Parque Calderon, and is about 1 mile from our apartment.  We took the bus there (more later about the adventure that is bus-riding in Cuenca), but decided to walk back in order to explore more.  On the other side of the cathedral is a flower market that can be smelled before it is seen:

In addition to the heavenly aroma, it is incredibly inexpensive.  One dozen perfect roses are $4.00.  Just beyond the flower market is one of several mercados, the best places to buy fresh fruits, vegetables and meats.  It is also necessary to haggle for the best price.  We exited that market with 6 mangoes, 1 pound of strawberries, 1 pound of cherries, 8 mini-loaves of assorted breads and a small bag of cookies for $5.00.  We were patting ourselves on the back for getting such a great deal, but we may look back on this first experience in a few months and realize what newbies we really were.

The rest of the walk home along the river included a few more churches, entertainment from Craig and a little bit of complaining from the girls about the long walk.

                              

Tomebamba River

As I mentioned above, in order to keep some amount of peace and sanity in the family, we have had to balance sight-seeing and meeting our basic survival needs (where do we buy diapers or wash clothes? how do we find an apartment within the next 3 weeks?) with the girls' need for some kid-centric fun activities.  Enter Parque de la Madre.  This beautiful new park, approximately 1 mile from our apartment and a lovely walk, has multiple play structures, a planetarium, tons of green space for picnics or running around, and is surrounded by a 3-lane running track.  But the highlight of the park, at least for our kids, is the ZIP-LINE!  I have a great video demonstration by Sofia, but am experiencing technical difficulties.  Maybe tomorrow it will cooperate.  Buenas Noches! 

we've arrived!

Moments before leaving US soil for a long time!

Well, the Arrowsmiths really are in Ecuador now!  It has been a long, but eventful, 48 hours.  We started yesterday morning in Palm Bay, FL, with an hour-long drive to Orlando to catch our first flight of the day to Miami.  The layover gave us plenty of time for some lunch and entertainment.

tempting...

Gracie has adapted very well to air travel

The ride to Quito was a bit bumpy (both due to turbulence and some antsy kids), but essentially uneventful. Truth is, our girls are very good travelers,

considering they are 2 and 5.  Customs and immigration were the most efficient I've ever experienced and we made it from the last row of the airplane to the comfort of our shuttle bus in less than an hour.

After 13 hours of travel, we finally arrived at our hotel for the night, the Quito Airport Suites.  It was a very quick stay (arrived at 9:00pm, left at 5:15am) and, in our younger, pre-kid days, Craig and I would have probably just slept at the airport, but it was worth it for the kids to have a bed to sleep in.  Plus, we met a very nice Canadian couple with whom we shared a few drinks and stories.

The girls' perspective of our 8-hour stay in Quito.  This is how they fell asleep.   By the morning, they had switched sides and neither of them remembered how that happened.

Our early morning flight afforded us the opportunity to arrive at our short-term rental here in Cuenca and have a rather productive 1st day.  We managed to eat breakfast, unpack, re-arrange the furniture, take a 3-hour nap, find a taxi, go grocery shopping, make dinner, figure out how to make free phone calls to the US using our computer, put kids to bed, play a game of cribbage and finish a blog post!  Tomorrow, we will tackle a walk through the historic center of the city and begin the search for our permanent home.  Enjoy the photos below from our first day, thanks for reading and let me know what you think so far!

--  Ileana

our first glimpse of Cuenca

Beautiful garden courtyard in the center of the premises

The little cafe associated with our apartment

Our sweet girl making the best of a sparsely-furnished home
and no other kids by playing a matching game

The front door

it's a small world

Happy New Year!  Well, we are less than 1 week away from the big move.  We had a fabulous 9 days in Texas with my family: an epic family football game on Christmas Day, outings to the park, the movies, and the zoo (including a close encounter with a giraffe!)

We are currently in Florida with Craig's family.  The unusually cool, rainy weather has kept us indoors more often than we expected, but we have taken advantage of the nice days to go to the park and zoo.  However, taking Sofia to Disney World has definitely been the highlight of the trip for me.  My experiences with Disney have been as a child (a little younger than Sofia is now), a college student, and now as a parent.  I got such a high from the pure joy that radiated from her all day.   And it was a LONG day!  We got a late start, drove 1.5 hours to get to the parking lot, then began our day of waiting in long lines.  But she was happy and cooperative throughout (even during the 2 HOURS it took to spend 5 minutes with Rapunzel), eventually falling asleep on the way home.

 







Toward the end of the day, we were making our way through Fantasyland and I decided we had to experience the "it's a small world" ride.  It's one of the few rides I remember from my childhood trip to Disney (that and the Haunted Mansion, which Sofia was very enthusiastic to try!)  As we waited in line (again!), Sofia asked me what the name of the ride meant.  I started describing how, although the Earth is an enormous place with billions of people, we have more in common than we might think.  It then occurred to me that this would be a great way to help ease some anxiety she may be feeling about moving to Ecuador.  "Even though Ecuador is a long, long way away from our home in Portland and may seem very different, you're going to find that the kids there are just like you in many ways.  They go to school, play with their friends, have birthday parties… that's how 'it's a small world!'"  By this time, we had moved up far enough in line for her to see the splashy entrance and she exclaimed, "It's not small… it's HUGE!"  Oh well, so much for the small world metaphor.  See you in Ecuador in 4 DAYS!!!!!

--  Ileana