Feliz navidad everyone! :)

Okay, guys - I'm about to head over to Montanita, to finally see Julez again. Before doing so, here's a short update of the last few days:

Sunday: Playing soccer in the park with Jan and a lot of Ecuadorian dudes. Fun, fun. Afterwards heading home to bake some cookies with Sarah. Had to delay the actual baking process to Monday, as a friend of Estefania arrived. We picked her up - and went dancing! Ole! More salsa lessons for me... *g*

Monday: Working again. Finally I know some people to say hi to in the mornings. :) Feels good. Filling out databases starts to suck. But hey, la vida no es un grano de miel, as I learned. *g* In the evening my first Spanish class. Learned loads of soccer vocabularies. And as I hit home - well, Sarah & Stef were already baking cookies! Sweet! :)

Tuesday: Work. Business as usual. Afterwards date with Mercedes, a lady from CouchSurfing. Some language exchange. Really lovely person - and a lovely family! Went shopping with Mercedes, her sister Diana & her Mum afterwards - and bought .... my christmas present!!! A new camera! Totally rocks! We went to a German restaurant afterwards to celebrate this fact with some German wheat beer. I like. :) (Sad news of the day: My insurance company decided not to reimburse me for my stolen camera. You know why?? Because I didn't run to the police station immediately, but was searching my room for it, asking the receptionist again and again etc. What the f**** is that???? Honestly - should you go travelling, don't get insured with HanseMerkur! Not worth the money!)

Wednesday: Work. Spanish class. Incredibly boring this time. Won't happen again. Not much going on.

Thursday: Work. I start to hate databases.

Friday: Christmas time! Ole! At 12 noon, my boss came to me: "Chris, stop working. I need you for a minute." Well - that minute extended into some 6 hours of yummi pizza and (really!) expensive wines! Around 6pm, I decided to head home to eat a bite, before my flatmates, Mercedes, Diana and some other friends and I went out for some serious dancing lessons. Damn, we owned that club! (In fact, for the first two hours we really did... no one else there...)

Saturday: I made fruit salad for my georgeous flatmates. And served it in bed. :) Merry christmas!
Well, they still all got up to eat properly... and to plan the day!

We wanted to go out to grab some Schnitzel for christmas. 3pm at the German restaurant, was the official date.

And then... huge disappointment. That restaurant was closed!!! I even had asked the waiter on Tuesday to confirm my christmas Schnitzel... but bad luck. We had to find another place, and I had Truthahn Steak instead. :)

Bought some christmas stuff afterwards... chocolate etc. And hey - we weren't the only ones. *g*

The rest of the day was really chilled out: Talk to family and some friends on Skype and then start an intense movie night... including Stromberg etc. :)

Sunday: Real christmas in some countries. I was invited to join my boss for his celebrations. Kind of an honour, as I realized that he only had invited his 6 closest friends! And, of course, his wife was there. :)

So it was 8 of us in total! And little intern Chris amongst all of them... really cool. :)

Officially it was just christmas "lunch". Well, I returned home around 9:30pm. If you see those loads of food (and even really delicious Glühwein was served!!! *g*), you might understand why...

And I even saw a wonderfully ornamented christmas tree. Jim & Dani buy some christmas stuff in every country they go to - over 40 so far - and put it up on the christmas tree each year. Cool idea. :)

Really nice day. Thanks, Jim & Dani, for that marvellous invitation! :)

Monday: Back to work. Not a national holiday here. Sad story. In the evening, I got invited by Mercedes to cook Spätzle with her and her family. Great fun! :) And absolutely delicious! :)

Tuesday: What a beautiful day! Sun was shining, life is good. During my 2-minutes-walk to work, I took a random picture to give you some idea of what I get more and more used to every day:

That big house in the center is my work place. Get to like it more and more. :)

Had some classes again after work - and they were really helpful! Even though I'm afraid now that my Spanish is still soooo bad these days, as I hardly ever use a subjunctivo. And that's what Spanish people obviously do half of their time! Incredible... Gotta learn that. Fast. Only problem: Also in subjunctivo there are like 4-6 different times... *aarrrrrgh*

Yay - and we re-celebrated christmas! Dani, a working colleague, her sister, Stef and I went out to eat Schnitzel! Ole! How cool ist that? Schnitzel in Quito? Wasn't that bad, either! Might have to go there on a regular bases from now on. :)

Wednesday: Finally no databases anymore! Put my boss into serious trouble, as he didn't know what I should do instead. Yesterday and today combined I spent like 6 hours just chilling out, talking to people, doing online-Spanish-courses etc. And then, finally, these dudes had the awesome idea that I could do some translations - English-German. Alright, better than nothing. And as it was my last day at work for this year, I didn't mind. Cause next year I was promised to learn their homepage-language to take care of the German promotional stuff! Sweet. Sounds like fun. :) (Maybe I should put 1$ in, call you, you guys book your trip, and done? How much would that action be worth to you? *g*)

Okay, so no more work for 2011. Got my ticket this morning (after waiting like 1.5 hrs in line - and arriving 1 hour late at work!), and will head off in 2hrs. Ole! Beach, here I come! :)

Guys, I wish all of you some really successful, happy and especially healthy New Year! We might see each other in 2012... who knows? :)

Love from Quito!

El Chris

P.S.: No christmas present/package/letter/card has arrived so far... :( But thanks for all those cool wishes and at least the announcement, that sth might arrive soon! Gives me hope! :)

It's christmas time!

When I went over to the office this morning, the sun was shining. No kidding - some 25°C would be an appropriate guess, in my opinion.

So - there we met, 11:30am. Ecuadorian time. Means, the bus left around 12:15pm. Right after I got in, some lady asked me for a dollar. She wanted to buy beer. Deal. Down for that. :) 10 mins later, some 20 people opened their first beer, cheering, singing, talking. Great stuff.

We arrived at the villa of our Managing Marketing Director (or sth similar) about an hour later. She opened the gates to her huge campus... some five houses could be counted, and at least as many cars. But hey, who counts, if it's christmas time?

Right: We were invited to the annual christmas party of Haugan Cruises, that pretty luxurious company I'm working at since ... well ... five days... ^^

The session was a blast: After some delicious lunch we had an intense photo & dancing session (fiestas here are soooo cool! I guess no one of the ca 60 guests - most arrived in their own vehicule - did not dance...), and, last but not least, everyone got some christmas gifts (including that brandnew intern who hardly anyone knew this morning - but, well, some photo session and a really hot dance performance later there are hardly any persons out there who don't know "el aleman" by now... *g*). [Pics might be uploaded the following days, once I receive them from my working colleagues. And, yes, they'll make you understand a little better why I start loving my job...]

But, of course, it's not just the party that rocks over here. :) After 2 days filling out some boring database all alone, I already got some first translations and group projects assigned... pretty quickly, in my opinion; another German intern told me, that she had to simply stare at the enterprises homepage for the whole first week! So I can't complain, I guess. :) (And, in fact, I don't... *g* Btw.: Did I mention that my boss invited me over for christmas lunch on Dec. 25 at his place? ^^)

So - the job is fun. My colleagues there too. So are my flatmates. We're like 8 persons inhabitating this house: Malenita, la abuela/the grandma; Maria Isabel, la sobrina de Malenita, kind of the lady in charge; a 50-year-old Suisse lady; Fatima, an Ecuadorian girl who yesterday made use of some tattoo-home-delivery-service. Took some six hours to 2/3rd complete her new devilish bird on her left calf; Matt, a Texas dude with loooong blond hair, who'd love to teach me how to cook. Total fail. After I ignored four of his advises, he finally had to admit, that my salsa (sauce) was pretty brilliant. ^^ (Guess my Barcelona homies have done a great job there already... *g*) And then Jan & Sarah, two German lads who're here for a voluntary project, around 6 months in total. Jan's the one I'm mostly hanging out with, going out, chilling, shopping, another soccer battle tomorrow... but he missed our awesome midnight-pancake-session Friday night - a spontaneous voice told us to make crepes ourselves after we couldn't find any chocolate cake nor affordable crepes on the streets around 11pm. Loved it. :)

Oh, and then there's Estefania. Met her last Sunday in the park while playing soccer. 5 days later, she moved in with me. ^^ As I have two beds, things are pretty relaxed so far; hope her boyfriend in Germany is of the same opinion. I just have to teach her hacer las compras properly and to take her hair out of the sink... but, other than that, we created a win-win-situation: I teach her German, as she wants to do an Au-Pair in Germany next year (her boyfriend could be a reason for that), and in return, she teaches me Spanish, Salsa and is allowed to make my bed every morning. Ain't that a fair deal? :)

She found a job in a restaurant now, so she'll be at work when I return home, and I'll be asleep when she finishes... but hey, at breakfast we'll still have some bonding time. :)

Spanish classes start on Monday. Furthermore, there are more dates lined up for language exchanges etc. So I'll probably don't have time to buy any christmas presents. Sorry! :( I'll try to make up for that throughout the upcoming year. :)

But hey, should you have the time to do stuff now, here's my wish list (yeah, I admit, in fact I should be wantlessly happy... and, I guess, I could manage to survive without any of the following things - except for the last one!):

• A trip to the Galapagos Islands. Including a diving adventure with whalesharks
• A new camera. A good one. To take decent pictures of this amazing life
• A long-sleeve, a jacket and at least 3 pairs of socks (they always disappear in the laundry)
• Funny, colourful wall decoration
• Parcels, letters and loads of postcards from everyone who thinks that distance shouldn't affect a friendship in a negative way

Should you be willing to contribute in any kind to any of these points, I cordially thank you in advance and wish all of you an incredibly relaxed last advent's Sunday as well as a lot of happy last-minute-christmas-preparations. :)

Saludos, abrazos y besos de Quito,

el aleman

Few pics, loads of news

Bienvenido a Quito, chicos! Guess I'm gonna stay here for a while: Found a job (well, two, in fact... *g*), a flat and some first friends. I like this place. :)

Last days were pretty chilled out, playing pool, walking around, do some shopping, find a flat, go to that job interview, get my first salary raise (even before I started working. *lol*) at Haugan Cruises, a tour operator that organizes luxury cruises to the Galapagos Islands, and get familiar with Banana language school, where I'll do some marketing in exchange for Spanish classes. Damn cool. :)

Julez left this morning off to Montanita, where he found a job as surf & dive instructor. So - I'm staying in Quito. And I already love it. Went to some park today with my new flatmate, Jan, to chill out, get some suntan, watch others playing soccer (yep, next week I'll head there again - with boots) and then all of a sudden found me playing soccer myself. Fun action. :)

Some food and a beer later I got another salsa, bachata & merengue lesson... why should I ever want to leave this place again???

So - except for that my cam has still not turned up again, life is totally good. Hopefully the insurance will cover for my loss - and I won't have anything else left to complain about. :)

Besos de Quito!

P.S.: My new address is:

Chris Kaiser
Jose Luis Tamayo 1051
La Mariscal
Quito
Ecuador

First letter to arrive here wins a premium postcard! :)

Next capital - different country

South American formalities were passed pretty easily, we reached Otavalo (again, by night), a nice little village where we supported the local economy by buying kilos of fruits as well as sunglasses and some chill-out pants. That was about it before we jumped into a bus down to Quito.

That’s where we are right now. Quito. Ecuador’s capital and with 1.5 million inhabitants its second largest city, right after Guayaquil (2.25 million inhabitants). A night in a hostel costs 5,60 US$ (US$ are the national currency), a bottle of rum is 3 $, a full meal including soup, drink and main course is 1,50 $. I love it here. Guess I should find some decent job. ;)

Our hostel provides a free pool table, which Julez and I enjoy pretty often. Yesterday we did some excellent cooking, had “Strammen Max” and Spaghetti Bolognese. *yumm*

Huge downturn: My camera got stolen. You might have noticed that there are no more pictures online since the desert. Well – those were still on my memory card, when it was taken by some unknown person yesterday afternoon. It’s an absolute shame… :(

Today Julez & I went to explore the inner city of Quito, while the girls supported a bullfighting arena. Now we’re back in hostel, a little disappointed by the (not-happening) fiestas of Quito’s foundation day, waiting for Carina to come back for some Skat-session. The weather ain’t too sunny here either, but we’re getting used to it. Let’s see how long I’ll be able to stand it here… :)

Enjoying the desert

Neiva is a little city that is not mentioned in our Lonely Planet guidebook. And, I guess, that’s for a reason. We arrived after dusk and convinced a cab driver to find us some cheap place to stay. He found one, some shabby hotel, where bathroom and beds are not really separated. *lol*

We explored the city a little by night, always aware of that good advice our hotel receptionist had given us: “Don’t head further than two blocks South, or you might never return.” Right. Good to know. ^^

We did not head South, but found the “city center”, a little park right next to the Casino, as the only place alive. Furthermore, we found a great bakery, where we enjoy croissants for 15 c and stuff. And a waitress who had lived in Bielefeld, Germany for some time and was absolutely eager to try her German.

Anyway – this city was just a one-night-stand, before we headed off into the desert the next day. “El desierto de Tatacoa” is what they call it – a desert surrounded by lush green fields, which is famous for its marvelous sky at nighttime. We booked three hammocks in a Posada and went off to explore the loneliness of the desert. And its beauty, which is absolutely breathtaking! I somehow fell in love with this place, just because it seems so calm, peaceful and still so beautiful…

Until these backpackers came and started to fool around... no more calmness left...

... but still beautiful...

While taking some further legendary pictures of us jumping above stones and sand in birthday suits, we met two fun ladies from Germany and Switzerland. Turned out they stayed at the same Posada as us, and had decided to visit the astronomer as well. “El astronomo”, as they call him in Villa Vieja, namely Javier, is a dude who seems to know every single star in the sky by name! Fascinating. We had a 1,5-hour-session with him explaining us different star signs, galaxies and constellations as well as staring at the moon through his telescope. Believe it or not – this picture is taken by my personal camera!

The rest of the night was spent at a campfire where we indulged in deep conversation about life and its sense. Guess what? We couldn’t elaborate the answer! What’s yours?

After a good night in that hammock listening to a desert’s rain we took off pretty early in order to reach our next destination: Popayan. 8am, happy mood, on time, all good – until the motor of our bus went broke. Oh yeah! Well, okay, half an hour later, another bus came to pick us up, everything went fine – until that bus stopped as well. Road blocked due to maintenance works. *outch*Another hour passed by before we could continue our journey and finally reach La Plata, where we had to change busses. Only problem here: The last bus to Popayan had left an hour ago! Sometimes life’s a bitch.

The good news were: Anything is possible in Colombia, as long as you have money. So we simply rented our personal bus to Popayan. Seven hours drive in a private bus for 120 US$ - divided by 7 gringos, as we had decided this morning to tag along with Carina, the German girl from the desert, Sina, the Swiss girl from the desert, Sarah, Sina’s friend, and Montana, an American dude. So, after a tough ride through the mountains, we finally reached Popayan exhausted and close to midnight, found our hostel, checked in and went out. A rough bus ride ain’tno reason to waste a night sleeping… ^^

Almost starving after seven hours with little supplies, we found a street vendor who sold us some meat and potatoes – and almost bought everything she had. *g* Guess it was her lucky night.

So, while enjoying our food, some two kids walked up to us and started asking in English where we were from, what we were doing around here etc. Turned out these kids just had the college graduation party, and it didn’t take long until we were surrounded by 20 13 to 17 year old guys & girls, staring at us, asking loads of questions and taking pictures. It kind of felt like being a VIP… ^^

(Would love to upload some great picture here... but I can´t... *sob*) 

Julez and I still explored the city by night a little more thoroughly, before we all went to bed...

Next day was time to say goodbye. Gin and Montana decided to stay in Popayan a little longer, while Julez, Carina, Sina, Sarah and me went down South to cross the Ecuadorian border. Another whole day to be spent in taxis & busses…