January 10, 2009 Move-In Day…Alpallana 293 y Almagro Edificio Ficoa Quito, Ecuador

Today was a very long day! First of all, Melissa and I stayed up really late last night…I loaded all the pictures I’ve taken so far onto facebook, I blogged, and set up my skype account (my skype name is erinclayton…so if you have skype maybe we can talk). Anyways, we didn’t end up going to bed until 3 am. We woke up this morning around 8:15…Rueben was going to pick us up at 9:15 to go sign the lease at our apartment. We had to pack so we could check out of our room before he arrived. Btw repacking sucks!! I have no idea how I got all that crap back into my bags… Once we checked out, Rueben came and took us to our apartment. Getting everything figured out with the apartment was very difficult and time consuming. First of all, the super doesn’t speak English, so Rueben had to do a lot of translating. They would not sign a 4 month lease, we had to get a 12 month lease and we’re going to break it at the beginning of May. This means we won’t get our security deposit ($1200) back. So today we had to pay a total of $2400 for this month! At first the people wanted us to pay two security deposits, but we got that squared away.
Lorena, our realtor, and the super stayed at the apartment to wait on the water to be turned on (we still don’t have hot water). Melissa, Jackie, Kathie, and I were starving (we didn’t get up in time for breakfast) so we decided to go to the mall, which is right down the road from our apartment, and grab something to eat. First we stopped by moviestar, which is equivalent to Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc… so Melissa could set up her phone so that we would all have an Ecuadorian number. We were in there for about 45 minutes. The people didn’t speak English so that was kind of a problem. We now have an Ecuadorian number but we’re not sure how to work it bc it’s in Spanish ha. After that, we headed to the mall. I am very impressed by the mall. It has some really nice stores! The clothes are very expensive though! Lorena had warned us about that yesterday. But we went and ate at McDonald’s in the food court. I was surprised to see Taco Bell, Papa Johns, and KFC there too! Let me tell you, McDonald’s never tasted so good! I’m not sure if it was really good or if I was just starving.
After eating, we went back to our apartment (at this point it still wasn’t officially our apt bc we had only paid the security deposit and not the first months rent). I laid down and took a siesta! I woke up around 3:45 and Rueben, Lorena, the super, and the owner (a doctor) were coming at 4. They came and we got everything settled…they also brought Kathie a bed (bc her room was originally an office). But the movers didn’t switch the beds to my room (I now have a queen size bed =0) ) and Mel & Jackie’s room. Sooo we would have to do that later (there’s pictures of this ha).
Once everyone left, we decided we needed to go get groceries and have dinner in the apartment. We decided to walk back to the mall, which is were SuperMaxi is! SuperMaxi is like Publix. As soon as we walked in, we realized that they didn’t have everything we needed…we needed to take an excursion to MegaMaxi. MegaMaxi is like a SuperTarget. Anyways, we hailed a cab and had him take us to MegaMaxi. The cab ride was only $1.
Wow, our experience in MegaMaxi was very interesting. We all were very tired and STARVING…this is not a good combo. Anyways, we ended up spending at least 2 hours in MegaMaxi. While we were shopping in MegaMaxi, we ran into the other girls Correna, Jenny, and Jennifer! They were shopping for things too! We couldn’t believe we saw them! We wanted them to come see our new apartment so they waited on us to finish shopping and headed back to the apartment with us. It was a good thing they were here bc I had to use to cabs to fit all of our groceries ha. Well, actually, we didn’t buy any groceries…we bought “must-need” items like towels, sheets, pots and pans (our apt. didn’t provide them), and a few other miscellaneous items. Anyways, we took a cab back to our apartment (alpallana y almegro edificio ficoa…sorry, I’m trying to remember my address). We put all the groceries into the lobby and then stuffed all the bags into the elevator. Melissa and I were in the elevator with all the bags so we could unload them once we got to our apartment. Finally, everyone got to come up and see our casa. They really liked it!!!
Melissa went on a cleaning streak and decided to mop and entire apartment! It really needed it…the bottom of our socks had turned black from walking around. We called Wes to come meet up with us bc we all wanted to go to dinner together. After about 30 minutes (Melissa finished cleaning and Correna, Jenny, and Jennifer were playing rummy) Wes finally arrived. The guard at the front desk did not know any English so I had to walk back upstairs to get my Spanish-English dictionary in order to communicate with him. I kinda hit the frustration phase at this point. I really wish I could speak Spanish, but we’re learning so much soooo quickly!
After Wes arrived we all decided to go to the Microbrewery which is on Wymper Street (also were Taco Nazo is). It was sooo good! Definitely hit the spot bc we were all starving! I had ravioli! 5 of us got the sampler of beer where we got to try 4 different types of beer. That was pretty cool bc we got to keep the glasses! Our waiter, Johnny, was very nice! We had a hard time paying…it seriously took us like 30 minutes to pay bc they put everyone’s check (la cuenta) together. That was an experience. There are pictures of us trying to count it out ha! After paying, we headed back to hotel quito to catch a cab.
Walking on Wymper Street at night felt really safe, especially with all 8 of us. Well, it felt safe until these MASSIVE german sheppards (they were guarding a building) almost jumped a fence to come after us! They were huge and keep barking and growling! I swear, my life flashed before my eyes ha! Jenny and I were walking in front of everyone and once we saw/heard those dogs we jolted to the back of the group (we all pushed Wes up in front of us ha). I ended up walking to the other side of the street. The dogs were sticking their heads through the poles…they seriously could have gotten out if they really wanted to! Anyways, like Wes said, they were just doing their job!
After all of us going our separate ways (either to homestays or our apt), we came home and decided to switch our rooms (the two twin beds were in my room and the queen size bed was in there room-they’re sharing a room)! We didn’t have a hard time moving the queen size bed, but we couldn’t get the twin beds through the door bc of the headboard. We ended up having to take the twin beds apart! By the end of this we were so exhausted! Today was a very fun day, but definitely very long and tiring!