Monday, Aug 8, 2016

Heidi and I decided to walk from our place to Servientega this morning. We needed to mail something to the coast and Servientega is the agency that can get it there. Several locations in Cuenca are listed on the web, and one is on Remigio Crespo. I thought it would be good to walk there, then grab some breakfast since Remigio Crespo is lined with restaurants.

Well it didn’t work out as I planned. We ended up walking several blocks past where Servientega should have been. When we realized this, we were getting hungry so we thought, let’s eat first, then mail the package. Part of our overshot included walking by the only place we had seen serving breakfast, so we went there.

When we approached the entrance we were met by a server who said they had no more waffles or coffee. Waffles weren’t on my list, but coffee definitely was. We decided to resume finding the Servientrega location, and look for breakfast elsewhere.

I pulled the location up again on the map from the internet and we couldn’t find that business anywhere in the area. We continued walking down Remigio Crespo looking for breakfast, and when we reached the end of the street at Solano, we had found nothing.

By this time I am starting to get really grouchy…or hangry as my son says. No coffee and no breakfast food, so I pulled out my last ditch effort. I flagged a taxi and Heidi and I headed to McDonald’s. Uuggh…I know! Caffeine addiction and “hangry” called for drastic measures.

We arrived at the Mickey Ds across from Parque de Madre, went inside and ordered coffee from McCafe and a breakfast sandwich from the restaurant. Within minutes of being served, my normally stellar disposition returned. 😉

In the end it all worked out. Four blocks from this McDonald’s is a Servientrega on Manuel J Calle y Paucabamba. I called our friend Pam (who speaks Spanish) and asked if she would call them first to make sure they were located there. She did this kindness for us, and verified they were there. We also learned the location at Remigio Crespo closed. At least I wasn’t crazy. I was beginning to question my ability to read a street map!

Tonight we met Aurobindo at the Millenium Plaza to see a movie. This is the first time Heidi and I have been in a movie theater since arriving in Ecuador. The movie was Jason Bourne, in English with Spanish subtitles. Thank you large expat community in Cuenca!

Ordering popcorn and drinks was a bit more challenging. The young guy at the counter tried hard to understand me and his effort was very much appreciated. Basically, they didn’t have diet coke in the fountain dispenser, so I wanted to change it to water. Then there was a discussion about regular water vs bottled water. Then when I settled on bottled water, another person pointed out that there was diet coke in a bottle.

That bit of news threw me over the edge. Before I moved to Ecuador I drank several cans of diet coke a day. When I arrived here I just stopped drinking it, cold turkey. Somehow it didn’t seem hard to give up. Since then I’ve been careful not to get back into the habit of having it as a “go to” drink.

Living in Cuenca is harder on that front because it is more readily available here. Still, since living in Ecuador this was only my 8th diet coke. (Four of them were during the days following the earthquake when I was eating chicken sandwiches at Carl’s Junior in the mall.) Considering I could easily drink 4 cans in one day, I’m doing great!

So, it’s been a day of McDonald’s, Diet Coke, and an English movie in the theater. You can take the man out of North America, but you can’t so easily take the North American out of the man. Sigh…things to work on.

Chau.