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! :)
Jou Dünni! I had German Schnitzel today! Good food after a long French-exam!
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