Have to go to Columbia

Monday July 28

(More pictures as we promised.)

Jayne and I went to my lawyer’s office to see what needs to be done. She told us that Jayne needs to leave the country in order to get either a 3 month or a 6 month extension and this is granted in an Ecuadorian Consulate abroad. The closest one she said is in Columbia and that she dealt with them before.

Maria said that we can take a bus there and it’ll be a 5 ½ hour ride. We said that we didn’t want to take a bus. The reason is that the roads could be bad; the drivers are bad and most importantly, there’s a chance of highway bandits! This has happened to others in Ecuador and going through Columbia, it’s more likely to happen. So we’ll fly.

Because of the damn government here, we’ll have to pay money for this trip which is not where we want to go for our honeymoon. We want to stay in a place where we like and to stay more than 2-3 days. But because of the stupid laws here, we’ll have to make a special trip, then take another trip for our honeymoon – which is being delayed because of all this.

Had we got married in Cyprus, the only thing that Jayne would need would be getting her resident visa when she comes back. Had we the money to live in Cyprus, we would and we would not have to go through all the red-tape, time, and money for either of us to live there (resident wise).

July 3

The view that well have from the balcony of where the reception will be.

Jayne and Craig on his birthday

Going to the Tailor

Jayne and I went to my lawyer’s office as we had to go to the police department. Now, in order to get a resident visa you have to get a police report from where you live that you don’t have a criminal record. When I got my visa only a few months ago, this was not necessary. When we got there, my lawyer said that we didn’t have to go as we could figure out the days remaining ourselves. This is what I thought all along.

Maria said that Jayne has another 90 days to live here, but in order to get the extension you still have to be in the country, you can’t get it when you come back in. (Doesn’t make sense!)
After we left the office and we went to get something to eat, I thought, Jayne doesn’t have 90 days left. She already used up many days that will only leave 34 days. If everything starts all over again with the new year, that leaves 59 days (31 days in January and 90 days when her current visa expires July 11, that leaves 59 days left).

Maria said that we will have to apply on the last day that her current visa expires. Now this is the date that we would be leaving for our trip to Aruba. Jayne thought that it would be better to book another flight as we would have to take our luggage to the immigration office in the morning then rush off to the airport.

In the evening I wrote to her via email if she could clarify this.


Since we had a couple of hours to kill before we could see the tailor, we went to a bookstore to look around. Then we went to the internet café. After that we walked and had another cup of coffee.


I got my shoes shined by a guy who has a chair on Plaza Grande. The cost is only 50 cents for a good shine but I paid him 25 cents more. They really do a good job.


I got a call from Matt asking how we were getting to Quito tomorrow and I told him that we have a guy coming for us. This is the guy who drove us Tuesday and has a regular car (new one). He offered to have his driver come in his (Matt’s) car to take us to the hotel and take us back Sunday. He said this’ll be his gift to us. I took him up on his offer.


However, when I got home I sent him an email to call the driver to say that ‘we had our trip cancelled.’ This will sound better and we will want to use him to take us to the airport when we do leave.


His driver will pick us up at 1.00pm. Matt’s has a nice SUV, white exterior and tan leather interior. This will be very nice to ride in.


At the tailor, Jayne tried on the dress but they still had to make the jacket for it. My vest was ready. So, I paid them for everything. Now we have to come back again tomorrow afternoon.

June 17 2008

Wedding Diary

Tuesday June 17, 2008


Today my computer crashed! (I’m typing this on my old laptop computer.) It all started yesterday when the phone company came unexpectedly here to fix my phone. I had been without one for a couple of weeks. Monday everything was fine, including the internet. Then Tuesday morning I got on the net and when I went to click on a link that I got in my email it all started. This link is from a big company that I know so I know it was from that email.


What happened was that it slowed my computer down to the point that I could not open or close other programs. This never happened when I took my computer to a wireless café. So, this must be because of my internet service. A virus would not act like this. In fact, a friend of mine who is a computer programmer stopped his service with this company because of things like this.


I hope my computer didn’t crash but I will have to take it to a computer repairman. Then we went to a store that sells material where Jayne bought the material for her dress that’ll be tailor made.


Then we went to the weddings shop to pick up the invitations. We saw that the date was wrong. Then we realize that it was after we dropped off the information that we found out from the British Embassy that the notice of the marriage has to be posted on their wall for 21 days before the wedding.


Now we’ll have to add a notice with the invitation that the date has been changed.
I had already wrote emails to most of the people who will be coming but the invitation will have to be sent, too.


Jayne and I got something to eat at a restaurant across from the street of the hotel that we will be staying at the night before and after the wedding. The room is very nice, but they just serve sandwiches and drinks. In other words, the room is much nicer than the food they serve. I’m glad we went there as we had plans to have dinner there while we stay at the hotel. Now, I see that it would be better to have it at the hotel


The hotel that we’ll be at has breakfast included but lunch and dinner is extra. I had already checked out the dinner price which is $19. The menu looked very nice but the price was high. So now well eat there anyway. After all, it is our wedding and we certainly don’t want to go out on the street where most of the ‘restaurants’ are poor.


From there we went to the tailor and dropped off the material. The cost of the material was $41 and to make the dress is $70. So, for $111 Jayne will have a very nice dress for our wedding.