Surf, sun (briefly) and fun

We've spent the past few weeks in and around Olon, getting to know more about our environment and adjusting to the day-to-day life in small town Ecuador. We are now in a much better rhythm with shopping at local markets, visiting our favorite encebollado (fish soup) vendor, acquiring fresh fish (and ignoring the lack of ice/refrigeration/ food safety standards), hitting up our favorite bakery, etc. Stores with walls, flavored seltzer and mac and cheese are distant memories.

Some recent highlights include:

-Talia had her first surf lessons and did great. Her first grade teacher is also her surf instructor.

-In addition to surf lessons, Talia does "telas," which is fabric acrobatics. Neither of her chosen sports are transferable to life in DC or gonna get her a college scholarship, but she's really enjoying them. Surf is entirely in Spanish, but for telas, she's convinced the bilingual instructor to speak English.

-For Rosh Hashanah, we had dinner with the 4 Jews we could find in this part of Ecuador. Kyla and Talia made raisin challah, of course, and others managed to make matzah ball soup and brisket. It was lovely.

-We enjoyed a bunch of hours of sun on the beach and at the pool. I really cannot wait for the consistently sunnier weather. Have I mentioned that?!

-We participated in a local beach clean up, where we ran into one of the teenagers who regularly makes Talia’s school bus ride the highlight of her day. Talia is the second kid picked up and the second to last kid dropped off, so she spends an hour each day chatting with the older kids on the bus and seeing places we’ve never visited. She loves it, and when we run into kids she knows from the bus, she exclaims “there’s one of my REAL-TEENAGER-chatting friends!”

-We went to our first birthday party, had dinner out with some new friends and started to feel like we kinda live here a bit.

-We explored Ayangue, a hopping beach town about 35 minutes south of Olon.

We are heading to Quito and surrounding areas next week. More from there!Read more