Getting Settled In

I’ve been busy getting settled in, so this is my first post since arriving in Cuenca last Wednesday. I’ve been hoofing the pavement trying to get reacclimated to the sights, sounds, and locations. Some locations and directions I remember well, while others I have to re-engage again. I plan to take my time finding an unfurnished apartment. Most of this week, I will be busy with a number of luncheon and dinner engagements with friends. Can some of you back home ever believe that this Monday will be two weeks since we ate out at Aladin’s. I wonder if the time has gone as incredibly fast for you as it has for me? I still have some unfinished business from back home of which to take care. I also need to buy a printer this week.

Today has been slow, which is good. It gives me a chance to post. The day started out absolutely gorgeous; warm, very sunny summer-like day with not a cloud in the sky. By 1:00 p.m. the clouds were rapidly forming, and by 2:00 p.m. it began raining and has been drizzling now for the last five or six hours. I thought, well this weather episode will give me time to finally take out of its new packaging, my Franklin Spanish/English translator, and use it. Oh, but I have no triple A batteries. The triple A's must have gotten dumped with my other overweight cargo at O'Hare Airport. I’m not going back out in the rain, so I just studied Spanish the old fashion way without any electronic gizmos. Much of my time has also been taken with emails to particular individuals and their inquiries, which is another reason to get this post up. I've also been busy buying and getting my phone sort of setup, and getting my phone number distributed. I had my first video-phone communication with my son, Marc, the other day. I was better prepared for it, than he was. As he scrambled around searching for his camera and microphone to hook up to his laptop so he could communicate with me by video, I was amazed that for once, I had my act together when it came to technology.

Some of you have inquired as to why you no longer get an email from me directly as my post is published. The problem is my blog creator only allows for a maximum of ten names that can receive immediate blog posts when published. Why that is, I have no idea. But since the blog doesn’t cost me anything, who am I to complain. Therefore, now that I am in Cuenca, I keep those immediate postings for family members and a few friends back home. Those of you who live in Cuenca or who have visited Cuenca and at one time were receiving immediate postings from my blog are encouraged to bookmark my blog URL, and just check occasionally to see if I have posted.

Much of what I am experiencing right now in Cuenca I have written about in past posts from my previous visit last summer, so at the moment there is little new to report. For those who wish to learn more about Cuenca and what other bloggers have to say, I encourage you to click on to any of the links in the right hand column of my blog page to see what other expats are experiencing. A number of them have taken really beautiful pictures. Particularly take note of the "South of Zero" blog, which provides the viewer each day with a synopsis of many of the latest posts in Cuenca and in Ecuador. I will blog occasionally when I have something to say, or have had a new experience to share with you. In the meantime, those of you north of the Equator, God bless and keep you. Those of you south of the Equator, let’s get to know one another better. Cuidense.