I Don't Know If This Is...GOOD NEWS or BAD NEWS

The Lead In:
The house is for sale now. The move to Cuenca is approx. June 1. It would be terrific if we could get the house sold and have that out of the way. But, if it sells now, we have to find some type of temporary home.

The "Good News or Bad News?" Part:
If we have to find a temporary place...... (are you ready?).....we qualify for a "seniors home". I think this is hilarious. Brennie doesn't. Not at all.

What We Are Doing To Speed Up Our Return to Cuenca...

Investing in this highly speculative

but potentially very profitable fund.

A Little Bragging Here.....

If you are reading this blog, you are either:
1) an old friend
2) a new friend, or
3) not include in either category above....whatever that means.

Whoever you are, you may or may not know our son Alex

Nevertheless, here is a link to a NY Times article about the Americorp team he leads.
Incidentally, he is one of the youngest Team Leaders in Americorps and one of very few to become a Team Leader their first year in.

Link to NY Times web article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/07land.html?ref=us

Link to slideshow at NY Times website:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/07/us/0907LAND_index.html

Link to a pic of our boy at NY Times slideshow:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/09/07/us/0907LAND_2.html

The hardcopy article is on page A7 of today's (Monday, 9/7) NY Times. Yeah, I went out and bought it.

Some days are just really sweet.

The way Brenda remembers it…

Cake – Clarke baked it himself – carrot cake. We bought a 5 gallon tub of Spumoni ice cream to go with it. We couldn’t afford groceries but we ate ice cream for weeks.

Flowers – Picked from the neighbor’s yard. They were old and blind. The neighbors, not the flowers.

Music – We played George Winston on our stereo from his album called “Winter”. Little did we know we had just moved to a house in Minnesota with inadequate insulation. The winter of 1984 was one of their coldest on record.

Maid of Honor – Sweet Choctaw…the real reason I married Clarke.

Preacher – Clerk of Court from Sterns County. He was the biggest expense of the wedding, ($20)…and the only person in a land of Norwegians and Scandinavians who would marry a couple of heathens from Oregon.

Wedding party – Only family. Of course, we had to have the wedding early in the day while everyone was sober.

Guests – We knew not a soul in Minnesota so Clarke rounded up some neighbors. Ever the tactful guy he knocked on their door and said “I know you’re going to be watching it from the window so you might as well come over and get a good seat. Bring your own lawn chair.”

Clothes – We did not know until the morning of the wedding what we were wearing. I ended up wearing a wrap-around skirt, knee socks and birkies. The blouse was purchased from my favorite thrift store in Oregon…the same place I bought the slacks Clarke wore. He had gained some weight and couldn’t fit into his own. Yeah, he used to be skinny!

Memories – Priceless! The children did not turn out so bad either…

Clarke's version is below.

Sept. 1 - Our 25th Anniversary

We got married 25 years ago in our front yard,

lakeside, on Lake Koronis, in Paynesville, MN.

The whole wedding (absolutely everythng)

cost less than $50.

Twenty five years on a fifty buck wedding ....

you don't see value like that very often.

The only photos are the ones our family took.

The photos are below......as I remember it.
Brenda may remember it different.....
.....if so, she can do her own post.

The dog (Choctaw) was Brenda's maid of honor.

You can click on the pics to see full size.

So.....How are we spending our time now?

A picture is

worth 1000 words.

For LOTS more words, you may go to:
http://www.topekaareahomes.com/index.php?option=com_ezrealty&task=detail&id=153399

For like a whole novel.....try: (a great read, but, not for sissies or people with sucky bandwidth)
http://www.propertypanorama.com/tour.asp?id=74771

More pics of the Apt in Cuenca, Ecuador

Click HERE or on the pic above to see more pics of the apartment.

Gee..... I hope we can live with the view.

The wall between living room and dining room comes out.

The wall between kitchen and dining room will be opened up too.

So we will have one very large open room for kitchen, dining and living rooms.

There are more pics linked from a couple posts down.

Click on the pic of the balcony.

THE LAST POST FROM CUENCA (for this year)

It is with great sadness that we are leaving Cuenca tomorrow morning. It has been a fabulous 8 weeks and we would love to stay longer. However there is business to attend to in Kansas.

We love it here and will be returning next June. Duh....we bought an apartment.

What do we love so much about Cuenca? The list is long, but at the top of that list is all the wonderful people we have met here. The main idea of this post it to thank all of our new friends here. You have made this visit wonderful and you are the main reason we are coming back. Without you, Cuenca is just a beautiful city. With you, it will be our home. You know who you are, so I won´t try to name everyone. If I tried to list everyone, I would just screw it up.

Special thanks to all those who encouraged Brenda with all the ¨ïnteresting¨ ideas for improving the apartment. I hope you are around with your checkbooks in June.

See you soon,
Clarke and Brenda

Apartment Signed, Sealed and Delivered

The sale is final. The apartment is paid for. 1600+ square feet. 40 foot balcony. Way less than 1/2 the price of a similar size house in Topeka......which means 1/4 to 1/6 the cost in Portland. Needs some updating in kitchen and baths, etc. But will be wonderful.

We can´t wait to come back and get started on the next phase of our lives.

No new pics or anything because the Internet in our current rented apt has been down for a couple days and Internet cafes here in Cuenca.

FYI property taxes are $20-30 a YEAR ( $2 - 2.50 a month). No heating bill because none of the houses here have heating or air conditioning.....neither is necessary on the equator in an 8000 foot Andean valley. Water and electric will be less than $30 a month...combined. We won´t need a car and therefor no car expenses. Gotta buy a motorcycle of some kind.
Life is sweet.

It Looks Like We Bought an Apartment

(Click here or on pic above to see more pics.)

We weren't looking.................

It just sort of happened.

It is in the downtown historic district.
The city shots are views from the balcony. (veranda?)

Perfectly livable right now,
but there is a reason that there are
no pics of the kitchen or 2 bathrooms.
We'll knock out walls
and do the remodel next year.


The deal is not final yet
and may fall through.
But we are prety confident
that it is a done thing....gulp.

I Took Some Pictures Today

Click here or on the pic above to see more pics of Cuenca.

I took a walk today and actually took the camera with me. Most of the pics (link above on pic or text) were just random pics. Not pics of monuments, churches, architecture or any of the usual "pretty things". I am able to take a couple walks a week of 2 hours or more. (Today was almost 3 hours.) These are exercise type walks...not a casual stroll. FYI the building above is completely faced with tile. Take a close look at it ..... very cool.

Anyway, today I took the camera and would occasionally take it out and take a couple shots in different directions.

On a few of the pics, it may look like I left the city and was in the country. Not true. There are 4 rivers that run through Cuenca. Also you can be walking in a "neighborhood" and see a very fine (expensive) house and next door could be a falling down old place or a vacant lot with old tires in it or someones little corn patch. Neighborhoods as we know them in the US, don't seem to exist here. I don't believe there is any such thing as zoning laws.

Cuenca is a great town for walking! It is not like taking a walk in Topeka.

.

I WAS WRONG (again)

Before we came to Cuenca, I was afraid that eight weeks might be too long.

I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was wrong.

It is going to be really tough to leave, even if it is for less than a year.

<--- Senor Not So Happy To Leave

Busses, Busses, Busses .......

So here is ”The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” on the busses.

The Good: Lots and lots of busses. They go everywhere in town….for 25 cents. If you stay on the same bus you can probably ride it all day for your quarter. All the lines are numbered and there might be 50 different routes (I really don’t know). I have seen Linea #1 and Linea #50 and lots of #’s in between. By the way, apparently some of the city busses go a considerable way out of town.

The Bad: No route map. Truly, there is no route map. I have asked around and there appears to be (yes I am saying it again)….no route map. The sign in the front window tells you about three of the major stops it makes. However, if you are truly a newbie - that is not much help. For instance, most of them say “Universidad” on the front. Well, I think there are 8 universities in Cuenca. Apparently if you are born here, the routes are part of your genetic memory. For newcomers, it can either be exciting, intimidating or frustrating …..but it is never boring!

The Ugly: This isn’t really the “ugly” but more like the “miscellaneous”. The busses don’t give change. So you must have exact change. Apparently there is a shortage of quarters in Cuenca ….. solution is to get a roll of quarters. I got mine from Nancy Watson. She calls them bus tokens. Take some time (days, months, years …..”time” is a relative term) and ride the busses till you know where they go. I have done some of that and it can be interesting. By the way, none of the busses seem to go in any specific direction. If a bus happens to be going east when you get on…that means absolutely nothing.

What is the worst thing that can happen if the bus is NOT going where you want? You can always catch a cab. Costs about $1.50 - $2.00 and there are 4,000 of those in Cuenca.

For a Good Time.....catch #7 going south on Salano (not east on 12deabril). Stay on the bus until it fnishes the loop. Take a box lunch, bottle of water and a book. make sure you start out well befor dark. Enjoy! For more fun, stay on for the other loop of the figure 8 that it does!

I Thought I Was on Vacation

Brenda made me get up early today.

She went lap swimming.

She made me climb stairs for 45 minutes. She is stupid. I hate her.

(click on pic for larger version)

And oh yeah, .......Here is a pic of the guy that made my hat. I thought he used gestures because I can't speak Spanish. Turns out he is mute. An extremeely likable man. I went to his store because it was truly the most humble place I saw selling hats. He makes them all himself. As it turns out....he is pretty famous around here.

Laundry Day - From the Softer Side

Cuenca was the original settlement of the Canari people who were later conquered by the Incas and the city was named Tomebama – after the river. The Spaniards colonized the city in the 1500’s and the city became known as Cuenca. The rio Tomebamba is the primary river which meanders merrily through this city. Some of the local indigenous women still wash their clothes in the river, using river rocks as their scrub boards. The clothes are then laid in the grass to dry. I’m humbled each time I see it. I will never complain about doing laundry again!

Ecuador is located on the equator, so most people mistakenly believe it is hot and humid here. Yes and no. Yes, it can be tropical on the coast and the Amazon jungle regions. Cuenca, however, is located in a valley of the Caja Mountains in the southern part of the Andes where the weather is ‘eternally spring’. June, July, and August is considered their winter season where the weather is still gorgeous but it rains more often. November, December, and January is their ‘Camelot weather’ – so they tell us.

Cuenca has three rivers that flow down from the mountains and through the city on their way to join mother Amazon. Consequently, Cuenca is known for its pure and refreshing drinking water. We enjoy it right from the tap.

La vida es buena! (Life is good!)