Busy in Cuenca

Finally my life is starting to get busy and guess what? I miss the days of taking it easy. I don't miss being bored but I miss not having things scheduled so if I wanted to stay in I could.

Last Tuesday my friends Craig and Lucy were having their soft opening of their restaurant the Windhorse Cafe on Calle Larga y Hermano Miguel. Steve and I walked in to the smell of breakfast cooking and people chatting it was great. Steve ordered oatmeal with brown sugar, bananas and nuts and a coffee. I ordered a fruit salad with yogurt, granola and a tea. We enjoyed or meal and the rushed off to the hospital ( it's not what you think).

We had taken our friend to Monte Sinai hospital on Sunday and they were admitted and on Tueday they were being released. We got there at 10:30 just in time I thought, but sadily they still had to remove the IV. Steve and I waited with our friend for an hour and a half longer and finally someone removed it and we went down to pay the bill. We couldn't believe how inexpensive it was, it was only a little over $600 for 2 nights and 3 days in the hospital. Wow!

After taking our friend home Steve and I went on a search for a new panini maker for Moca. Ours has broken twice now and we have had it fixed both times (they can fix anything around here) so we think we should have a new one on stand by. One of friends told us of a restaurant supply store so we went there to check it out. Wow they had some nice panini makes with really expensive prices, but they are restaurant grade. We also went to the normal places Coral and Super Stock and had no luck finding what we were looking for at the price we are looking for.

We took on a new property to manage for Cuenca Flats that has a tenet in it for the next two years, so pretty good we thought. Well, in between all these errands on Tuesday we also got a call from the tenet that the hot water wasn't working in one of the bathrooms. So in between helping our friend and looking for a new panini maker we went by the apartment and checked on the hot water heater. Oh my did I miss my apartment and being bored :). Steve played witht the water heater and found a temporary solution until we can get a plumber there.

Through out the rest of the week we feel as if we are on the move non stop. On Wednesday I had to go in to Moca in the morning to work since Steve and Courtney had to try to get an extension on Courtney's Visa since our lawyer apparently didn't file the paperwork in time again. On Wednesdays it is also ladies lunch day at noon, where a group of women pick a place once a week and we meet up talk and try out a new restaurant. We also started doing a donation fund for ARCA a foundation to protect animals. This week it was supposed to be at San Sebas so I told another friend about it and she was going to head there and then at 2pm head to a NEW weekly scrabble game. At 12:45ish she appeared at Moca and said the taxi drove her around for 45 minutes and couldn't find the cafe or the park that it is next to. So, she had lunch at Moca. It was great to see her. Wednesday nights is reserved for Book Study. Every Wednesday night we meet some friends to talk about a book. The book we are studying at this time is "Shambhala the sacred path of the warrior". It is a great book. Some of these people also meet on Sundays for meditation. I started a new Facebook group for Meditation in Cuenca in case others were interested in meditation.

Today is Friday and about 6 weeks ago I started Afternoon Tea at Moca a Ladies Social hour where ladies can get together have tea and coffee for FREE and chat. I have also set up some guest speakers. This week was supposed to be a cosmetic surgeon but he had to cancel last night due to a emergency surgery that he is doing today. On the 22 of June, I have a lady coming to talk about Essential Oils.

As you can tell I am not as bored anymore as I was in my earlier posts :). What do you plan to do when you get here? or if you are here already what do you do?

Pets Cuenca

As I was awoken this morning around 4:45 by the loud sounds of a very small dog, I started to think about the differences in pets here versus in the USA, at least where we last lived in Decatur, Georgia. Our last neighborhood we lived in had any kind of oridinace you could think of, noise, smell, pets and so many more. When we moved there we brought 2 of our 4 dogs Ed and Capri. I knew Capri would be able to handle a smaller hame and yard since we were downsizing and she is a beagle. We couldn't find Ed a new home so we had to take him with us. Ed is a big dog, he is a tree walker coon hound.

Where we lived before Decatur, in middle Georgia, the dogs had lots of yard to enjoy and the neighbors didn't seem to complain about them barking, we even asked a few of them and they said "no problem". Taking them to a city was a little different, and we didn't know that dogs weren't allowed to bark for more 10 minutes, or you could get cited. Unfortunately, we moved to squirel haven. Every where you'd look there were squirels and for a hound and a beagle, well lets just say it was hard to control them. After a few months I learned some new commands that helped get them back to the house when they wouldn't stop the barking.

Now we are here in Cuenca and we left Ed and Capri back in the states with family. Ed is with my brother Allen and Dad. Capri is with our daughters in an apartment. We miss them very much, but there are benefits to not having pets anymore. We can go out and not worry about being there to take care of them. Feeling guilty when we are out past their dinner time.

Before moving to Cuenca we had read on some blogs and Yahoo groups about dogs that were being poisoned. That was so sad. Maybe it's because they don't have a system in place to deal with noisy dogs. No animal control and they can't talk to each other here either.

When we first arrived here in Cuenca I saw dogs roaming around the streets without owners and it wasn't like in the US where they just run out in the street with the possiblity of getting hit. No these dogs in Cuenca know how to cross the streets. They will start at one side and stop in the middle where the island is and then look to make sure it is safe to continue crossing the street. It is great. Our landlady told me that she will let her dog out of the yard and remind it to look both ways and be safe and then dog comes home. You can walk down the side walks and dogs will walk right past you, they don't care about what you're doing or what you have in your bags they are just going some where with a purpose it seems.

Back to the little dog this morning. I wanted to open the window and yell out to tell it to shut it up, but I am pretty sure it speaks spanish LOL, and I may have upset it more and it could have barked even longer. I thought about going to talk to the owners later in the morning and then I remembered what my friend said that it's not worth it because then they owners may not be responsive to you telling them how to take care of their dog and then they will know where you live and may treat you worse. I just want to be neighborly and tell them to shut their dogs up. Hopefully nonone is thinking of poisoning them.

In the states you could call animal control, but here the animals are in control. Still it seems a dogs life here is much more laid back than in the states, and just maybe the dogs are smarter.