Monday, Nov 14, 2016

Heidi, Easton, and I wandered into Sofy’s for a late lunch and we ran into Helmut and Trudy. Helmut was in our Coffee Club Spanish class a couple of months ago, and his wife Trudy was in the more advanced class that met after ours. It was great seeing them both.

Cuenca is starting to become rather small. It isn’t difficult to run into people we know here now, and we don’t know many people. What is weird, and yet not, is that I was thinking of Helmut and Trudy yesterday. I swear it is an energy thing; thoughts create our reality.

Helmut and Trudy told us of a great musician they recently heard. He plays the accordion and is excellent. They basically had front row seats for an intimate two hour concert held in a very nice hotel lounge area.

This is one of the great things about living in Cuenca. There are so many venues, large and small, where talented musicians and singers regularly entertain for free or very little money. This particular musician is local, so next time he is playing all of us are going to go and listen to him play.

I got my first look at the Cuenca airport today. Easton and I met Michelle here when she arrived tonight. It reminds me of my small airport in St George, UT. The passenger waiting area is on the second floor of this two story building.

When we arrived many people were standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows that look out onto the area where the planes pull up. Michelle’s plane had just arrived. Easton and I watched through the big windows as everyone got off the plane. Eventually we spotted Michelle walking down the stairs disembarking her plane.

Passengers pick up their luggage on the first floor, so Easton and I went back downstairs to meet her. The luggage area is in a separate area and not accessible to the people meeting their family and friends. One by one the arriving passengers would pop out into the main corridor of the airport much to the delight of their family and friends waiting for them.

People are the same in an airport whether it is in Ecuador or the States. The reactions of those waiting and those arriving are ones of joy and excitement when they see each other. I have decided that Ecuadorians give each other better hugs than we do in the US.

I watched a 30ish year old man enter the corridor and he had about eight people waiting for him. It looked like his parents, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. I would say the parents were in their seventies and the youngest nephew was two years old. The man gave a long fully embracing hug to each person who was their to greet him. Everyone’s faces happy and eyes bright.

Michelle popped into the corridor carrying her big backpack and Easton and I met her with big smiles. After exchanging are own hugs we all jumped into a taxi and headed back to our place. Heidi is at home and has a great dinner waiting for us. There was also a beautiful sunset over the mountains waiting too.sunset-tonight

Chau.