Sunday, December 18, 2011

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

No comments:

Post a Comment