me address. es. possibly.

I'm in a bizarre self inflicted rush. Tengo prisa.

Just to say: I'm leaving Quito permanently on the 13th, so you haveabout two days exactly to post that letter there*, or change theaddress to the next one.

I think the next one listed in the sidebar here is Cayenne, in French Guiana, where I can pick stuff up in late November.

But if you want an address in between now and two months from now, then ... there are options.

• I'll definitely be in Cuenca, Ecuador till October 25th, studying a bit more spanish.
• I'll also call at Iquitos, Peru at the start of November [but I don't know for sure that I'll have time to get mail there, and as there's noroads to the place, I don't know if mail wil take forever to get thereor not. So if you send anything there, let me know.]
• I will DEFINITELY go to Manaus, Brazil, for early November, and will have time to pick up mail. And it's a big, reliable city.

* That letter you OWE me. Yeah, you. You got postcards, right? You didn't reply to emails, right? I send out 40 DIFFERENT emails or cards and I can count repliers on the finger of one finger.

** If you have my home address in Quito, DON'T send anything there. It's super convenient for me to pick up, but it has the disadvantage of an extra week for the entire apartment block to read the thing first.

Letters sent to the Lista De Correos in Quito, (the addy in the sidebar) are quicker, delivery takes about 12 days.

*** Lista de Correos, Correo Central, then the name of the city, plus the country is probably enough of an address to get somewhere. In the end.

OKAY: resume of addresses:

1. Quito Lista De Correos (aka Poste Restante), Correo Central, Espejo 935, Quito, Ecuador - not valid after 2 days, (your end)
2. Lista De Correos, Correo Central, Cuenca, Ecuador - not valid after 7th Oct
3. Lista De Correos, Serpost, Arica 102, Iquitos, Amazonas, Peru - not valid after 20th Oct - dodgy. WARN me.
4. Posta Restante, Correios, Rua Marcílio Dias 160, Manaus, Amazonas, Brasíl **** - not valid after 25th Oct
5. Poste Restante, La Poste, Place Leopold Heder, Cayenne****, French Guiana, France. - not valid after 14th Nov
6. Poste Restante, Korte Kerkstraat 1, Paramaribo, Suriname. - not valid after 25th Nov

**** Recap: MANAUS! CAYENNE! These are good reliable time frames!

aquí estoy

Quito and I are not speaking any more. The honeymoon drew to a frosty, sudden close.
I can't eat any more rice, any more huevos, I can't suffer Quito's icy 6am showers, they remind me too much of an old man with no teeth spitting, I can't blithely walk into morning smog cloud dense enough to make the Andes disappear.
I'm the snappish bitter wife who wishes Quito would scrub up a bit, act more like we'd just met, send me flower sellers, offer me its ayudar, its corázon once more.

So to spite the whingeing, which can be considerable and lengthy (if I sent mail, I apologise. disculpe) I offer you one of the prettiest dictations I´ve transcribed at mi escuela:

Elefante - Durmiendo con la Luna

Aquí estoy entre el amor y el olvido
Entre recuerdos y el frió
Entre el silencio y tu voz
Aquí estoy viendo pasar los segundos
Viendo pasar los minutos
Viendo pasar el amor
Aquí estoy con la sonrisa fingida
Que me dejó tu partida
Como un verano sin sol
Aquí estoy sin la mitad de mi vida
Uncallejón sin salida
Viendo la vida pasar
Aquí estoy cantándole a la fortuna
Soñando con tu cintura
Con lo que nunca será
Aquí estoy enredado con la duda
Durmiéndo con la luna
Despertándo con el sol
Aquí estoy

Vale

More on la lengua ... it's making my head hurt. I don't speak any english here ... unless I'm reading a novel or writing an email (oh, that's 75% of the day done, then).

> How strange to be in a
> non-english speaking world, I didn't know they existed!

Me either. Everywhere else I´ve been ('cepting China, where you're inferior for not being chinese anyway, so they expect you to be stupid, which is actually rather helpful) they seemed aware that learning their language was hard, so they helped, or praise you as you stumble through it.

Here, nobody speaks english, so why would they be nice to you for speaking a bit of
spanish? Why can't you speak it properly? You tiresome gringo.
Look, we'll slow it down a bit, and that's all we're doing. Speak spanish properly!

Yeah, I'm picking it up quickish*, but... it feels so weird not to be reverting to your home tongue. Not to be able to say what you really mean, or say it with sub-clauses, or in tenses that are even approaching correct. Some days ... well, most days ... I feel like my head can't take another word of this blasted lingo, and go sit on some steps in the sunshine wondering when it'll be easy.

If my profesora tells me an irregular verb, I quite unfairly fix her with a steely look as if she'd made the language difficult quite on purpose, to destroy me.

Perhaps I should calm down, and just speak it spectacularly badly for a day or two.

(* Disclaimer for people I know who are learning spanish where it's not going so quick: I get 20 hours a week of spanish classes, I do another 25 hours a week of revising me spanish, I only speak spanish at home, I only speak spanish outside the home, and on the weekends, I go on extra spanish language outings. Of course it's going quicker than sitting at home with a book.)

Right, Enough. I'm off to Cotopaxi for the weekend.

me gusta mucho viajar*

So... I´ve been in Quito, Ecuador, just two days. I had one spanish lesson.

I also had 19 hour flight lag, altitude sickness, major period pain, stinking squits, a stinking cold, and a blister from the damnably new experience of wearing a watch .... moving or standing is hard, let alone recalling anyone´s name.

And nobody speaks english.

But.... I toasted the spanish! I rule!

Soy Yo puedo hablar español!
Yo pienso que español es facil. (Pero la alfabeta es mas es muy difícil...)
No soy tengo miedo después una dias. No tengo vergüenza!

Mind you, I can´t roll an "r" to save my life, not with the cottonmouth that 2800m above sea level gives you.

Bothered!

* feel free to correct all the mistakes.