One last bureaucratic grasp before freedom!

Mis amigos on the big 'ol volcano rock, in the páramo before climbing the volcano Sincholagua.


So, I am about to venture into Quito (and yes, between village life in Lumbisí and bourgeois Cumbaya, going to Quito is indeed a big to-do) for another round of paperwork, standing in line, card obtaining madness. I have been told this will be the last of it, but we will just have to see. I will be getting my CENSO card, a sort of green-card for extended-stay foreigners. Apparantly we can get into national parks, events and the like at local price as opposed to the general trend of charging actual vacationers double or triple entry fees for things. Anywho, I look forward to focusing on other, less annoying things.

On another note, my schedule is falling into place perfectly. In the morning before class I go to a café with wireless and about as close to real coffee as you can get. One thing I have been surprised about is the lack of actual brewed coffee here. If you are to find it at all, it will be the instant variety in the supermarket, or variations of espresso. Ah well... Anyway this place, Cactus, plays Bob Marley every morning, which I suppose is not a bad way to start off the day. If you make it there for lunch or a beer in the afternoon, you will without a doubt here Rolling Stones' album Some Girls. Why they choose that album is a mystery, someone behind the scenes must have good taste (as it is the only Stones album save Exile on Main St. worth anything at all in my opinion).

In general globalization's effects on countries like Ecuador are shown in myriad ways. For is example, why are there scores of Kentucky Fried Chickens here, and not a single Arbys, Burger King, or Subway? I am sure that when my four months here come to a conclusion, I will have a whole notebook full of musings on how crazy this world is. Connected, changed, and forever different because of things like internet, mass communication and international business.

Tomorrow I get my first taste of sushi as my group is going out to celebrate a friend's birthday. Sushi is in fact my favorite food, and lucky me because not only are there two sushi joints in Cumbaya, there is another place in my university I have yet to attend. I was saving it for a special day, you know, when I like, really deserve it :)