Catching Up and What Next?

In Which, I Write a Long Overdue Post

Hi guys! Victoria here. Sorry we haven't posted very frequently. Neither of us is really good at sitting down for an hour and just banging away at the keyboard, but I promise, we are working on getting better!

So it's been a little more than a month, and we're starting to really settle in. Our apartment is still looking a bit bare, but we're going to be filling it over the next few months. 

This is our living room and our dining room. We're still not entirely sure which is going to be which, but I imagine we'll figure it out as we go. Right now though, it's quite bare and echo-y, which is the most annoying bit. Hopefully, with a bit of furniture and maybe a rug or two, we can eradicate that issue.

SO. Lots has happened, but none of it really big stuff. We're finding a daily rhythm, thankyouJesus. I love the 'no schedule' feeling of vacation, but after a few weeks of it, I really start to feel lost and adrift. I just work better with a schedule, I suppose.

Anyway. We're getting into a rhythm that includes, as John mentioned in the last post, Crossfit! Our torture of choice involves a 20-ish minute walk down and then up some pretty steep hills (baby mountains, really), followed by a cardio-intensive WOD, then a nice hot shower, then, depending on the day, we'll do another 20-ish minute walk BACK to the apartment or we'll take the bus into El Centro for groceries and lunch. Needless to say, the bus days are my favorite. 

Welcom back, Crossfit still hates you!!

One of my LEAST favorite thing about this Crossfit is that they love cardio. Oh man, do they ever love their cardio. And burpees. They REALLY love burpees. I've made an agreement with Santiago, one of the trainers, that I'll do 3 doubleunders for every burpee I don't have to do. I really, really hate burpees. 

I struggle through a lot of the WODs due to their aforementioned love of cardio (which I have always severely lacked) in addition to the altitude. Have you tried to do wallballs, wallclimbs and a 200m run at 8000+ feet? No? Then shut your mouth. It's ridiculous y'all. I feel like I'm on the moon, but without the whole weightlessness effect. THAT would be appreciated  but nooooo...I just have to feel like my lung are about to be ripped out of my body. 

In other news, we're getting more and more comfortable with the local markets. We've been going to the Mayorista roughly every other week, and we still go down to El Centro every Monday for our meat. We have the best chicken vendor - a place called Puro Pollo, and it is, indeed, THE.BEST. chicken I have ever tasted in my life. Seriously. I'd ship you some if I could, but I can't, so come visit us and I'll feed you. In the meantime though, I'll try to remember to take pictures this Monday so you can see what I'm talking about. 

Heaven in a bag!

One of the strangest and yet most common-sensical thing you'll see here is people eating out of little bags. You get them from street vendors selling their wares, anything from snack food to straight up lunch or dinner. This is one of our favorite street foods (so far) - papas fritas (fried potatoes or, if you prefer, french fries). The lady at the tienda around the corner from us sets up this huge grill/fryer most nights and fries potatoes and sells them in these bags for a buck. She tops it with a few fried hotdog pieces, ceviche (onion, vinegar, tomato and herb sauce), mayonnaise and the Ecuadorian version of ketchup. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. They are so good. And awesome for a snack to hold you over while you make dinner. 

One of the best things that's happened in the past month is that we've become really great friends with the people who live on the second floor (our 'vecinos'). Juan and Andrea are just a few years younger than us, with a 7-month-old baby boy, Juan Martin. They have been absolutely wonderful! We've had breakfast, lunch and dinner with them in their apartment multiple times, and they've helped us immeasurably when we're looking for things for the apartment, like curtains for the windows or mirrors for the bathroom. They've taken us to Baños and we've somehow fallen into a habit of going out to dinner with them on Saturdays. 

They've introduced us to their friends and family and basically just welcomed us with open arms and open hearts. Juan speaks pretty good English and Andrea understands, so between all of us, we have some really amazing times and awesome fellowship.

And that's basically where we're at now. We haven't found a home church yet, so please keep praying for that. We really want to get plugged in with a spiritual family here. But the Lord has blessed us with so many other people already, who have been nothing but open and welcoming to us, and we are so grateful for them. 

OH! And we still see Marco and Elena, athough not as often as we'd like. No fault of theirs or ours, we're just all busy with our lives. Their daughter Tania and her husband John-Mark have been visiting for the past 2 weeks or so as well, so they've been busy catching up with them. However, we're planning on seeing them tomorrow at church, and John and I are really looking forward to that!

Speaking of my favorite husband, he recently trimmed his mountain-man beard, so I'll leave you with the pictures of THAT particular event at the end of the post. 

In the coming weeks, we've got a couple of things happening. Our Canadian friends, Beth, Wayne and Roxana (Jill, really, but apparently the 'J' is really hard for Ecuadorians, so Roxana it is), run a bakery out of their house, Panaderia Canadiense (Canadian Bakery). They make a lot of really great things, and we've been able to sample most of them. Perks of being friends ;)

Anyway, there's a sort of expo-market going on this coming week in one of the surrounding towns that they'll be attending to spread awareness of their bakery. We've offered to help them in the past with either baking or deliveries, and they've taken us up on that offer. I'll be helping Jill bake the sweet treats (crisps, brownies, energy bars) and John will come along as the muscle. That's going to be at least 2-4 days, so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that and post them up.

Also, we're planning on going to Quito very soon to get John signed up for his distance Spanish courses and get the Student Visa squared away. We also might sneak in some sushi there, but who knows, it's tough to tell. Anyway, that'll probably be the week after next and we'll probably make a daytrip out of it, since Quito's only 2.5-3 hours away. Should be good fun, and again, I'll do my best to remember to take pictures of whatever we do. 

Let us know what you want to hear about - food? Friends? Where we go? What we do? There's a lot going on every day, and if we were to write it all, then you DEFINITELY wouldn't read any of this. So leave us a comment with what you want to know more about, and we'll do our best to accommodate you :)

In the process...

The aftermath...

Finished product!