Christmas Eve 2009

I got up and left early to go to Starbucks to go on the internet. Since I didn't get what I wanted done yesterday, I have to do it today.

I sent of a bunch of e-card for Christmas to my friends and family.

After I left Starbucks, I went to the jewellery store to buy Jayne some gifts. I looked over everything carefully and picked out a silver diamond cut necklace. I also bought two polished stones that has silver around it that can be worn around the neck. This is what Jayne likes, so I hope she likes what I bought her.

One gift will be for the anniversary and other other two will be Christmas gifts.

We had a bit to eat at home. Then I called the taxi to take us to the hotel. We used the same guy that is a friend of Yiannis' who took us to immigration. It's within walking distance but it doesn't look nice walking to a hotel and pulling a suitcase along. It was close to 2pm when he came. The cost was 4 eros and some change, but I gave him five euros.

Check-in time is 2pm. The cost for 2 nights and the gala dinner came to 310 euros. It broke down to 100 per night and 55 euros per person for the meal.

When we checked into the room I asked Jayne were my other bag was (that has my computer cable and her gifts). She didn't take it with her!

Continued in the next post...

Close to Christmas

Wednesday 23 December

Today I went to the office to go on the internet. A little while later I saw a carriage with a horse draw up. I found out that they guy is a friend of Yiannis. This guy told me that the takes people for rides and does a lot of weddings.

I called Jayne to say, 'Your carriage is here.' I told her to come down and she did. I found out that the guy's name is Nic or Nicolas. I said we would like a ride. He said that the ride is 10 euros for 10 minutes.

In stead of taking us around the block he took us to his farm. This was about a 10 minute ride. As it turned out we stayed the whole day. There are some other English people there who wanted to see him.

He has a hectare or two in an area where there are expensive homes. As I found out later that where he lives was owned by a Turk, so he doesn't have papers of ownership. Anyhow, Nic or however you spell it, offers rides to people.

Nic talked and talked, and he seems to have had a very interesting life. He had been in all kinds of businesses and he said he was very successful in them. Then he took us to another area of the village where he showed a jaguar that he is restoring. One of the English guys restores antique cars. Then it was back at his house where his wife made lunch for us. As I found out later his wife is from Kavkas, and of course, speaks Russian. So I spoke a little Russian with her.

We got back to the office about 4.15. since we had left about 10am it had been a long day. Then, Nic talked some more in the office. I talked also and told him what I do, mentioning EFT. He seemed interested in it.

Middle of December

Yiannis said to us that he will be going to a village with some friends for Christmas and asked if we wanted to come along. We said yes. He said that there is small hotel that we'd be staying out. I had said that Jayne and were thinking about going somewhere just to get out of the flat.

Then about this time, Angela wanted to know if we wanted to come with her and Jan to a Holiday Inn for dinner for Christmas night (25th). I told her about our plans with Yiannis.

Later Yiannis said that guy would not be going as he can't bring his dog. Well, later Jayne and I figured out that he had invited us where he was not in a postion to invite us. You never do this when you are invited yourself.

Anyhow, thinking that I had already talked to Angela and she made plans with Jan, we would book a place in a hotel somewhere in town. Even if we did go out with Angela, it would only be for a few hours and it's not a nice thing to spend out anniversary in a junky studio flat that we are in now.

So, I went to check on two nice hotels in the area. The Applonian wanted 175 euros per night and that would include the gala dinner and lunch the next day. Then I went to the Miremare and they wanted 100 euros per night (for the room not per person). The dinner would be 55 euros each and if we wanted the Christmas lunch it would be 30 euros each.

I talked to Jayne and we decided to go to the Miremare for the night of the 24th and 25th.
I got an email from Clive saying that Mary had talked to Angela. I was told that Angela seemed upset that we wouldn't be joining them. He asked if we could compromise. So, I got on the phone with Angela and told her the story of our original plans; the plans that fell through with Yainnis and of us booking a hotel. I invited her to come for dinner and I would pay for that. She said no. then I said what about breakfast the next day and she couldn't because of the dog and cat she takes care of and it would be too much food to eat, since she would be going out that night again.
Then I finally said that we would join them on the 25th if she could get the space. She thought that was good and was happy.

Since we will be having our gala diner on the 24th, we would be just having a regular dinner on the 25th, we thought it would be better to be with Angela. Now Jan is not a happy person to be with but that's the way she is.

I wrote back to Clive about this and he wrote back to me saying he was happy about it.
Angela is proud that it was through her that I met Jayne, so it's only natural to for me to make a special effort to be with her. I have been glad of all the places and times she invited me to join her and her group. This year, most of the people she knows will be with their family – some of them back in England. Also, her husband, Derrick died this past June, and it's the first Christmas she'll have without him.

The dinner at the Holiday will be 27 euros, so that might be the same as the regular dinner at the Miramare for Christmas.

Christmas Pictures pt 4

By the way this is our 2nd anniversary when we first met, but it’s our 3rd Christmas together. Every day is like a honeymoon!

Christmas Pictures pt 1

Here are some more Christmas pictures. I’ll put them on different posts because this blog seems to jumble up the pictures.

Picture on the left is when we were ready to have Christmas diner. It was fish and pancakes with stuffed vegetables.

Christmas Day

I got up first which was about 7.30am. Jayne got up about 8.30am. When I had my coffee it was peaceful with just the birds singing. About 8.30 I saw a worker on a roof of a house that they are building next door. Later I head others with heavy machinery on the roof making noise.

Typical Ecuador!

This country really pisses me off. You can’t have peace and quiet on Christmas. In the U.S. and many other countries even if the company is non-Christian owned they give the workers the day off, but not here!

I guess the company/workers are just heathens!

When Jayne got up we said Merry Christmas to each other and Happy Anniversary. It has been two years ago that we first met - though this is our third Christmas together. We will always have a double holiday on 25th of December.

I called Richard to wish him a nice Christmas. He told me that he is sick and has been for the past couple of days. He said he took some pills for his neck and it has made him sleepy and lethargic. I said he should have stopped taking them as soon as he felt that way. However, we had a nice chat.

In the meantime, Jayne called her daughter, Nat, to give her Christmas greetings. She also called a friend of hers, Rowena, whom I know. She hasn’t talked to her since she came to Ecuador in April.

Then we got some champagne, some good chocolate and went to open our gifts. I put Christmas music on, too. I had Jayne open her gifts first. I gave her some canvases to paint on, paint, and things for her future computer such as: two types of microphones, and memory stick with 4 GB.

Jayne gave me a book by Donald Trump and some socks – which I needed. The book she bought is in English. I haven’t read any of his books but I always wanted to as I should get some excellent business advice from them. (I found out later that he co-authored 10 other books.)

Living in Ecuador there are a lot of phone calls we have to make. I wrote down the times we have to make the calls and when to expect calls. For example, for me to make a call to Russia I had to do this in the morning as they are 9 hours ahead of us. The calls to Cyprus, they are 8 hours ahead. To Holland, for Jayne to call her daughter, they are 7 hours ahead. Jayne’s mother lives in England and they are 6 hours ahead of us. Her mother said she’d call us at noon our time (6pm their time). For me calling America (eastern coast), they are the same time as us. But I have to call when the family is at my aunt’s home as they will be there for dinner. My aunt, Carol, said it would be good to call between 7 – 7.30pm.

About 12.30pm Jayne’s mother, Lil, called here.

Later, I called my mother. Sharon (my sister) picked up the phone as she was visiting there and gave our mother some gifts. I talked to Sharon first than my mother.

After this call, I called Yiannis – a good friend of mine who lives in Cyprus. We had a nice conversation. I told him of our plans to move back to Cyprus and hope to be there in a couple of months. He was pleased to hear that. I called about 1.30pm my time so it was 9.30pm his time. He had his son over for dinner and he was home all day.

About 3pm Jayne and I had our Christmas dinner. It the first and only meal we had today. Jayne cooked a beautiful dinner. We had white fish, avocado salad and a stuffed pancake. I never had pancakes that were stuffed, but this was delicious. She made the pancake itself with fresh carrot juice instead of milk and it was filled with brown rice, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese sauce (and probably something else that I forgot). With the meal we had champagne.

Then we watched a Christmas film called Santa 2 with Tim Allen. This was a kids’ film but it was nice. We still have one more Christmas film that we haven’t seen.

About 7.10pm I called Carol. This was the last call of the day I made. Carol answered the phone and we had a nice talk. She said they were just finishing up the desert. They wait awhile after they eat their meal before desert, which is good. I also got to talk to my cousins and my brother-in-law. Since I already talked to Sharon when she was visiting our mother, I didn’t feel the need to talk again.

One of Carol’s sons was not there as he was with his girlfriend who lives in Texas.

In the evening I lit the fireplace for the very first time since I moved here. It was nice, especially with the Christmas decorations. I got some wood that was cut and put in the driveway that had plastic covering over it. When I was about to bring it in the house I notice a lot of ants crawling on it. So I carried only the pieces of wood that I would put on the fire right away.

Then I went to get some more wood and that had even more ants on it. I don’t know why so many ants are on it. I see piles of wood at the lumber yard in town and I don’t think they have problems with ants. I wonder if it’s because the wood is covered and it gives a good environment for them.

The wood that came off the roof crackled a lot and shot out some amber on the floor. Of course we had to step on it right away. I don’t like the idea that it does it; if no one was in the room it could burn the floor. If we had a rug down it could burn that. Jayne and I thought it would be good in the future to use coal. It would burn longer, give off more heat, and it would not throw out burning amber.

While the fireplace was going Jayne and read a book. I started to read the book that she gave me, Think Big by Donald Trump. So far it’s really good. I’ll save some of the reading when we go to the farm on New Year. We also had a drink of Irish Cream Whiskey and some cheese cake that I bought while we were reading.

So ends a wonderful Christmas together!

We hope all our family and friends had a good Christmas, too.