Well, well. Here it is, my first blog entry ever:
What to say about my first few days in Quito, Ecuador. I moved down here to work for a travel website and guidebook publishing company... and I have to say from the moment I got to my new workplace they kind of just threw me right in. For the past two days I´ve been working on writing an introduction for a page on our website on Tanzania -- how cool that I get to sit around reading, daydreaming, and writing about Africa and it´s actually what I´m meant to be doing at work! Tomorrow I´m going to start researching the drug trade in Colombia for a box in our as yet to be published guidebook for Colombia. Apparently there isn´t much out there written about Colombia and seeing as though its a country that travellers actually fall in love with, we are hoping to capitalize on that niche.
Other than that, theres a lot of ¨back end¨web stuff, which i´ve probably only grasped a handful of so far, but its really interesting! Search engine optimization is kind of my new favorite thing that i´ve learned about in the past two days.
As for other stuff: I´m living in this hostel right outside of the main gringo slash going out area, and its really noisy and kind of shady, to the point where i take all my valuables to work with me on the bus everyday, and that actually seems like a better option then leaving it in my room, which is a private room and kind of pricey for what it is, considering i hear peoples conversations from across the street all night long.
Last night was pub quiz night at the ´Reina Victoria´pub, which is an expat bar, and apparently my new supervisor runs pub quiz night and convinced me to stay for it, despite the fact that i hadnt slept in two days. My team consisted of one of my coworkers, Crit, an american guy from Rochester who has been living here for years and is married to an Ecuadorian, another american guy whose name and biography i have forgotton, and a british guy who had the keenest pub quiz skills i have ever encountered and am likely to ever encount. So, we won second place (no thanks to me sadly... apparently i don´t know enough useless facts, must get on that immediately), which resulted in free pitchers of beer and of course glory. It was about 10:00 pm and my hostel was probably only 5 blocks away from the pub, and i thought i would walk home but when i mentioned this people around me freaked out. Apparently, in Quito, you can{t walk anywhere afer dark, even if its 5 blocks away. So i sucked it up and payed a dollar fifty (highway robbery!) to take a cab back to my place.
Today after work I went appartment hunting with this semi-broker guy who i randomly found on the net, a canadian who has been living here for a little while. I saw 3 apartments, two of which were pretty much no good, and one tha was actually pretty cool -- the walls of the entire room are made up of windows, and you get a clear view of the whole city. The lady ´who owns the apartment lives there with her small daughter, and there are four rooms for travellers/students/tourists. The price is so- so and its kind of on the outskirts of the tourist area, which means at night it will be a mad dash to the door. So i figure i´ll keep looking and see what else i can come up with, though this isnt a bad option.
Other than that... its wierd, i havent really had a chance to speak much spanish, as we speak english in my office and that takes up most of my day. Even Lorena, who is my age, ecuadorian, and started working at my office on the same day as me, finds it strange that in her own city and country, she speaks english all day. But apparently, we have a deal with some company we advertise for, they send spanish teachers over to us for lessons and we advertose for them for free. So next week i´ll probably have my first lesson, which i am really looking forward to! Over the wekend i´ll probably also look into salsa lessons, as i promised myself i would be a salsa fiend when i got out of here.
hmm, that might be it for now....
Raising my Pilsner to you all!
besos,
Nili
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
No one at the office had any housing hunting tips? That kind of surprised me. Things sound pretty awesome though. If we happen to go to Columbia together would it be "research" for you? If so, COOL! If not, screw them, we'll be drug kingpins by then and won't care about little start-up "legal" companies like the one you work at. By the way, what's it called?
Nili Larish, you best not get yourself strangle mugged within your first week there. I'd be so totally jealous.
I expect these blogs to be regular. Some of us miss our Nili fix already. Boooooo.
I won´t... though 2 nights ago i actually met a guy who was strangle mugged, but he somewhow managed to fight them off, which kind of makes no sense to me... but whatever.
maybe he pretended to pass out so that while he was being mugged he could attack unsuspected. out of shock they ran away but with his money...
you can't fight off a strangle mugging. Doy
It only becomes a strangle mugging once you have been strangled. Doy
Make better friends.
Post a Comment