Mike Frohling turns 53!

Today is Mike's birthday. For lunch, he chose Inca Lounge. We always enjoy looking at the river as we eat. We found out something interesting from the restaurant owner. It is illegal to serve food after 11:00pm in Cuenca. We recently noticed that the Subway on Calle Larga had been shut down. He said it was because they were caught serving food after 11:00pm. That law just seems weird to me. 

After eating, we took a walk along the Tomebama River. It's Spring here and today was a perfect Spring day. 73-degrees and mostly sunny. 

There is an exercise trail along the river. This sign points out areas of interest along the way. 

As usual, we saw some rather interesting urban art. 

A beautiful city!

This is the University of Cuenca campus. 

Below, you can see the walking/running/biking path beside the river. 

Mike enjoying the day. 

We then visited the Panama Hat Museum where Mike purchased a birthday gift for himself. 

Here are some murals inside the Panama Hat Museum. 

And there is this outfit at the Museum entrance. 

Tonight, we have been invited to play dominoes and enjoy dinner with our neighbors Bill and Barbara. Another fun day in Cuenca!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy 75th birthday to my Dad!  I'll see you in December. 

Thanksgiving 2014

Our first Thanksgiving in Cuenca. We celebrated by sleeping in and then joined our friends Jaci and Micki for lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. Afterwards, we did a little shopping at Sukasa and SuperMaxi. Doesn't sound very exciting but we had a great time. I had a salad for dinner and Mike had pizza. Now we are watching a holiday classic "White Christmas." We leave for the US in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to celebrating Christmas with friends and family. 

Cuenca, Ecuador ...One Year Later

Today marks the one year anniversary of our initial trip to Cuenca, Ecuador. The purpose of our trip was to decide whether we wanted to live in Cuenca or Quito. Quito is the Capitol of Ecuador. After exploring the City of Cuenca it was a no-brainer that we choose Cuenca. The scale of the city is so perfect. We live in El Centro. This is the center of Cuenca. We can easily walk three miles, in any direction, and find anything that we could possibly ever need. Quito seemed too busy and dirty. Cuenca is moderately busy, the population is about 500,000 with more than half concentrated in the center of the city. Quito has a population of 2.5 million. Taxis outnumber people here, buses are $0.25 a ride, we recently purchased bicycles, and we got our driver's licenses this past Monday. With that said, getting around is a snap! While we were here, last year, we found the apartment that we currently live in. When we first walked in it just felt right. So, we rented the apartment and started making our plans to move to Cuenca. It was one of the best decisions we've ever made!

Driver's License

Today we took the computerized written test and got our Ecuador Driver's License. We hired a facilitator which made the process a lot easier. The test is in Spanish and you are required to answer 16 out of 20 questions correct in order to pass. We now have our permanent resident Visa, Cedula, and Driver's License. This is home!!

Cuenca is not "set up on the system" to process Gringos seeking to get their License. We did what is known as a License swap. Since our US Licenses were still valid, we were able to skip the required Driving School. This would cost around $200 each for a two week class.  Today, our facilitator, Victor, drove us to Giron, Ecuador (30 minutes outside of Cuenca) where we completed the process. $293.00 later, we can now join all of the other crazy lunatics on the roads of Ecuador. 

On the way to Giron we saw cows, pigs, sheep, and this beautiful view. That is the City of Giron in the distance. 

Orchid Exposition

Yesterday was the first day of the 4th International and the 5th National Orchid Exposition held at Mall del Rio in Cuenca. There were thousands of orchids on display and for sale. 

The Bonsai Club of Cuenca had a nice display as well. 

And there we some very nice flower arrangements. 

If you enjoy flowers then Mall del Rio is where you need to be this weekend. The show runs through Sunday in the Convention Center. Cost to enter is only $2.00. 

These are the three orchids I purchased.