American Independence Day

Friday July 4

Happy Independence Day!


Jayne and Craig on July 4, taken at Katherine and Tarquin hostal.

Today I had to get up at 4.00am to make a call to my Cyprus bank because they are 8 hours ahead of Ecuador. The first call I was put on hold then I noticed that there was no power in my phone. I put the phone on the rack and picked it up and everything looked normal. I thought it was beyond reach of the charger so I went to the kitchen where there is no door to block the line. Again when I was waiting the phone went dead.

So, it looks like the phone needs to be replaced. The problem might be that the battery no longer holds a charge.

Then I got on my cell phone (good thing I had enough money on it).

I had to call two different numbers because I had to do two different things to do. I called my local office to ask them to activate my cards (you had to send a fax and later call). He said he would do it.

Then I called the main office to activate my online banking. I got the subscriber number. Later I went on the internet and was able to log on. This is good. Going online also told me that it’s not the phone connection – as it was before – but now it’s just the phone.

Looks like I’ll have to make a trip to the mall before Jayne and I leave for the city so I can buy a phone. With the time that I’d been on the phone I might have to add money to my cell phone. I don’t want to be without it for the wedding day!

I went to the mall to buy a phone, put money on my cell phone and to buy an umbrella. In the meantime Jayne packed our things.

Matt’s driver came at 1.00pm. We still had a few things to do so he waited. When we left and we were a couple of blocks from home I realized that I forgot the music CD that we are to dance to, so we returned home.

We checked into the hotel about 2pm. At 3pm we went to the tailor to see what they’ve done. Jayne’s dress was to be finished but we had to wait. When she got it she noticed that it had a faint charcoal like line down the front of her dress. At first she thought that it came from the material shop but looking at it closely the line stop right where other material was sewn on top so she knew that they got it dirty. Also there was slight dirt right at the corner of her jacket. This indicates that they did it.

I dropped off my suit that I’m wearing at the wedding. When I bought it in the suit had a stitching all around the suit. At one time this was the style but it could also have been what the tailors use when the made the suit. Wearing it with or without is ok but it looks better, according to Jayne, without it. He said it would be ready in two hours. Since we had to be somewhere else I said I’ll pick it up tomorrow.

Well, their shop is very scruffy looking with the carpet dirty. She asked them if they had some cleaner to get it off and they didn’t. Well, this is poor of them; every tailor should have that in case of accidents. So the lady told her that she had to buy some at another store!

We went with the dress to the dry cleaners and they said it won’t be ready until Wednesday. Since this would not do, we went to a supermarket where Jayne bought rug cleaner. She also had a left over piece of the fabric to test it on.

Off to the wedding shop where we paid for the extra things we got, which was a cake and candles. Grace, who works there, said she would be glad to set up the wedding tables at no charge. Also, her mother said that she will put a figure of the Bride and Groom on the cake. That was very nice of her. So Jayne picked one out. We would have bought one but since we left one that was already bought at Giovanna’s place we were without one.

Then we had to go back to the tailor shop to see if everything was ready as more fitting had to be done. While we waited we saw that the time was getting late to go to Tarquin hostal. I couldn’t call as my cell phone was in the hotel being charged.

When we got back I called Tarquin to say sorry that we are late (we were to meet the photographer there at 5pm). I said that it’ll be 6pm by the time we get there. He said that’s ok.

I packed the cameras then we walked to his place.

We met Tarquin and Rachael (who’ll be taking the pictures). I showed her how the cameras operate. Then we had dinner there. The main course was vegetarian stuffed eggplant – which was delicious. I forgot already what we had for starters.

We were told that they’ll be a Salsa lesson. This is great as there might be some Salsa at the wedding. First the teacher, who is also the manager at the hostal, started us out with Merange, which is simpler. However he never went over a couple of turns. Anyhow, I took both lessons in Cyprus so I’m acquainted with what to do.

We got to the hotel about 10.30pm.