Back on a plane but just for the weekend

I am about to take a plane again just to take my nieces back to Ecuador. They spent three weeks with her super cool aunt Daniella, their "personal shopper". It's going to be really tiring to travel just for the weekend but the good part it's that I'll get to see my family and friends.. well.. at least for one day. I haven't started packing and yet I already got one full suitcase full of other people's things, and some reels that my dad ordered online. Who orders curtain holders or whatever they are called in English? Luckily a friend who is pretty good at packing luggage needed to send some clothes for her nephew and she did all the packing today.

Earlier tonight I shopped for a friend from Ecuador via Blackberry messenger, a couple of blue jeans and tops... The thing is you can't buy anything in Ecuador these days... We are back to the days that everything was prohibited, import duties are way high. For God's sake, my Dad was here on business last week and he went to Walmart to get all his goodies, cereals etc. that he doesn't find there anymore... We were saved from communism in the 70s... we never would have imagined that would we get a socialist-leninist government in the twenty first century. When will people realize that doesn't work?

I for my part, will go to the supermarket in Ecuador to get muchines (some marvelous yuca made croquettes if I may call them that way) and other ecuadorian stuff. I have a pre-reunion for my twenty fifht graduation anniversary on labor Day weekend, in Miami.. Haven't seen most of them well, obviously.. in 25 years. Yet I still care for some of them specially the ones that did elementary school together.

Guess I have to start packing.. at least a couple of things to wear this weekend... Read more!

Back to normal is nice, but what a great time I had

Loved Germany as always. It feels like home †o me.. A friend and I biked on the side of the Rhine River and visited some other places, close to Koblenz. The weather was perfect, didn't miss the heat we experienced in Rome or Florence, and that was waiting for me in Houston.
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After my trip to Europe I had to go to Ecuador for two weeks.Very conveniently, I scheduled a business meeting just before a huge Family Party in Cuenca. My uncle turned 80 and my aunt and cousins invited the family (I have 40 cousins) to come to Cuenca for the weekend. This might sound really cheesy, but heaven must be a little like those hours we spent together... So much joy, singing, crying, laughing out loud. People from all ages dancing together and having a blast!
Those cuencanos are really hospitable people... Everywhere I went people were so kind. It was a little contrasting to how some people treated us in Italy or Spain.. Well, we have to understand, July is too warm for them... My cousin from Barcelona say that during July and August, people open their businesses late and mad that they have to open them.

Anyway, I can say I spent the month of July doing what I like the most: taking thousands of photographs, and sharing them in Facebook or Picasa (link on the right). I did it mostly for my closest friends, but the truth is they are not that good with internet, so many other people I barely know commented and followed our trip Read more!