Monday, November 14, 2005
Last day in Quito
Quite an interesting day today. I took a tour of the city, including one cathedral where every square inch of the interior is covered with gold leaf...estimated to be 30 tons of gold. Meanwhile, there are a lot of very poor people out in the square trying to make a living by selling small handmade souvenirs or offering to shine shoes...go figure.
After a little shopping and dropping off my packages at the hotel, I headed for the mall to see if I could find a soccer ("football") shirt from the Ecuador World Cup team. I was unsuccessful at that, but did find their food court on the top floor. There were about 30 different places with food from all over the world. The biggest line was at KFC, second biggest at Pizza Hut, followed by McDonald´s...not a major revelation, I guess, but interesting nevertheless.
I stopped at an Ecuadorian place where they were grilling lots of meat and chicken over an open flame and where the dishes had a lot of great-looking beans. I ordered "combo con pollo" from the picture on the wall, mostly because I thought it would be easy to order. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be sufficient just to say "combo con pollo" as she asked me something unintelligible and once again I had to say "no hablo Espanol...¿hablo Ingles?" She shook her head no and we were at an impass until one of the cooks yelled out "Beans!" and I said "yup, that´s it."
After lunch, I headed off to Papaya.net (the internet cafe in "Gringoland") so I could print off my e-ticket for tomorrow. While I was on the phone with Cindy, an elderly indiginous woman walked by the cafe and stopped at my window to show me the Ecuadorian flags she was selling. I rubbed my fingers together making the international sign for "how much." She held up 4 fingers and I held up 3. She motioned for me to come outside so we could discuss the transaction. I looked in my wallet and saw that I didn´t have change and waved a 20 dollar bill...she indicated that it was too big for her. I went back inside to see if I could get change, then I realized I did have $4. I went out and said OK $4....great bargainer that I am. As I was paying her and she was getting a flag out of her bag, I felt my wallet being removed from my back pocket. I usually keep it in my front pocket, but due to the haphazardness of figuring out the right amount, etc, I must have put it in my back pocket.
The really important facts here are:
1) I only had about $100 in my wallet, but
2) It´s all the cash I had and
3) Both of my credit cards and my ATM card were in there too.
How do you say " I don´t have any money" in Spanish?
I´m sorry, I´m running out of internet time...I´ll have to finish this if and when I get back to the US.
After a little shopping and dropping off my packages at the hotel, I headed for the mall to see if I could find a soccer ("football") shirt from the Ecuador World Cup team. I was unsuccessful at that, but did find their food court on the top floor. There were about 30 different places with food from all over the world. The biggest line was at KFC, second biggest at Pizza Hut, followed by McDonald´s...not a major revelation, I guess, but interesting nevertheless.
I stopped at an Ecuadorian place where they were grilling lots of meat and chicken over an open flame and where the dishes had a lot of great-looking beans. I ordered "combo con pollo" from the picture on the wall, mostly because I thought it would be easy to order. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be sufficient just to say "combo con pollo" as she asked me something unintelligible and once again I had to say "no hablo Espanol...¿hablo Ingles?" She shook her head no and we were at an impass until one of the cooks yelled out "Beans!" and I said "yup, that´s it."
After lunch, I headed off to Papaya.net (the internet cafe in "Gringoland") so I could print off my e-ticket for tomorrow. While I was on the phone with Cindy, an elderly indiginous woman walked by the cafe and stopped at my window to show me the Ecuadorian flags she was selling. I rubbed my fingers together making the international sign for "how much." She held up 4 fingers and I held up 3. She motioned for me to come outside so we could discuss the transaction. I looked in my wallet and saw that I didn´t have change and waved a 20 dollar bill...she indicated that it was too big for her. I went back inside to see if I could get change, then I realized I did have $4. I went out and said OK $4....great bargainer that I am. As I was paying her and she was getting a flag out of her bag, I felt my wallet being removed from my back pocket. I usually keep it in my front pocket, but due to the haphazardness of figuring out the right amount, etc, I must have put it in my back pocket.
The really important facts here are:
1) I only had about $100 in my wallet, but
2) It´s all the cash I had and
3) Both of my credit cards and my ATM card were in there too.
How do you say " I don´t have any money" in Spanish?
I´m sorry, I´m running out of internet time...I´ll have to finish this if and when I get back to the US.
# posted by dennis @ 5:13 PM 
