Sunday, April 2, 2006

Well. The laptop, which has been ailing for a while, finally got so sick that we had to take drastic measures: a clean install. This means the computer is as it was just out of the box. No software, no Michael's "side" and my "side," no wallpaper with cute pictures of our beloved cat Max, who is currently living with his Aunt Mary.

Luckily Michael is fastidious about periodically backing up our work on DVD. And he saved our most recent stuff to his i-Pod right before the big install. We didn't know if the problem was one that could be fixed with a clean install, but it was our last hope before having to send it back to the US to be fixed. (btw, thanks Tekserve, for not bothering to answer e-mails.)

So... the point of all this is that after the clean install, Michael had to buy Adobe Photoshop. The good news is that it's downloadable from the Internet. The bad news is it takes forever, especially if there are a bunch of other people in the Internet cafe sucking up bandwidth. So basically we've spent the past three days at the Internet cafe, downloading.

As you know, we're staying in the Mariscal area of Quito's New Town, which gets my vote for the backpackeriest neighborhood ever. It's actually very nice, but if you brought me here blindfolded I wouldn't know where in the world I was. We've eaten Thai food, shwarma, barbecued ribs and chicken, and homefries.

We've eaten Indian food four times, plus two batches of leftovers. We've surfed to the very end of the Internet and back. And I have seen nothing of Quito outside of this gringo holding pen and our room. And the hostel's shared bathroom. Sigh.

Someone here is nasty. I have my theory on who it is *cough*smelly guy in the next room*cough* but who can really say? Anyway, to be specific (sorry), someone is peeing all over the toilet seat and the floor. And not flushing.

I have no problem with the whole "if it's yellow let it mellow" in the home. But unless there's a drought, I think we should flush all public toilets. It's poured down rain every afternoon, so I'm thinking there is no drought, but I could be wrong.

Either way, no one wants to see your frothy yellow pee. We really don't. Also, you should probably be drinking more water. (See, why should I know that about you? Gross.) But I can let all that go if you just at least get it into the actual toilet. I mean...?

But the messing with the computer is finally over and done and everything is back the way it was, except the photos of Max. Tomorrow we are going to venture out into the rest of the city and hopefully see a bunch of cool stuff. Then I will have something to write about besides the computer and other people's nasty habits. I can't wait. Probably you can't either.

 

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KFC is thriving in Quito, but we had our fill of fast food back in San Jose.

Maracuya flavored Profit Fire - yum.