Carry on.
Almost had another panic attack today. Lily and I will travel to Germany in a week. Usually, I use her Ecuadorian passport to get out of Ecuador and back into it, and her German passport to land in Amsterdam and Germany, and get out. Well, "usually" is a bit of a reach - we only did that once. Anyway, her mom has her Ecuadorian passport, and I had only checked the expiration dates on our German passports. Not good. Today I woke up, thinking about that, and remembered that I had a scan in my dropbox. And, yeah, it's a bit tricky - the passport expires 8 days after we're back in Ecuador.
Big scare. Immediately, I started writing the people I know have connections into the according places. And of course, I got conflicting results. Didn't help. But then, at today's Coffee Festival here in Cotacachi, I bumped into the family that first took me in - they're half french. No worries, they said. As long as the passport that Lily travels on (which is the German), no problem at all. I'm a bit relieved now. But I'll try to get the passport next week, anyway.
C., in whose bar I lived and worked and whose family the mentioned above is, has formed since then a spectacular band. A mix of all kind of styles. He's an amazing guitarist, playing lead in the song above.
When I wrote the video post about the catwalk that I modeled in, I also thought about how much my friendships have changed over the years. When I arrived in Cotacachi 11 years ago, there weren't many young people around. My best friend was/is 12 years older than me. Even my wife was 9 years older than me. Strange.
That has changed now. So many younger people have moved to town, and formed their own sub-community, a wonderful mix of locals and expats from all over the world. I enjoy the experience that older folks bring with, and was able to learn a lot from it - but it's also great to be around my own generation.
When J., the friend mentioned above, left Ecuador, she made me a CD with favorite songs. Dez Mona's "Carry on" was one of our favorites to listen to while slowly getting drunk on cheap whiskey. Or was it rum? I'm not sure. It's a different kind of song, with a beautiful background music, and a very unusual voice.
I've come far in the last weeks. Was able to arrange a lot of things, so I won't have too much trouble during my vacation. Christmas with my family in germany. Wow. It's been a while. 2012 was the last time. I'm not looking forward to the weather, but to Lily's smiles and happiness, as well as my dad who can't travel anymore. It'll be worth it.
One of my favorite goosebumps songs. I might have shared it before. But I just stumbled upon it again, so here it is. I hope I'll be able to see Mumford & Sons live one day.
I wish you all a wonderful Saturday!
Post written for the #saturdayselections by Galenkp inviting us to share music in the Weekend Experiences community on Saturdays.
Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
Fingers crossed for the trip going well for you both!
I missed most of my friends from a decade ago, many of them have traveled different paths, myself included. Newer friends made over the past years look more like a process of coming and going as opposed to a constant interrupted river that just keeps flowing. Guess it's also part of the nature of modern reality.
I had that phase of very fluid friendships. It was fun, but mainly because I wasn't as stable, either. These days, I'm a lot more entrenched in community work, plus Lily's school, plus my in-laws - the more settled I got, the longer the friendships lasted.
At first I thought a golden bar is in your photograph. But I suppose it is a mushroom of some kind?
But still, even when it is a mushroom, at second glance, and third glance, I still see a gold bar.
Hope you have a great vacation! Germany and Netherlands? Or just visiting Germany?
What made you move to Equador at a young age?
I'd love that to be a gold bar... But I'm not that lucky to find Atahualpa's treasure! It's a mushroom indeed, with a cable for lights running above it. Found that at the fashion show I was involved with last weekend.
Just visiting Germany, though it's not far away from the Netherlands - way up north, around 1h north of Hamburg. That's where I grew up, and most of my family still lives there.
I came to Ecuador through studies. After a year of exchange, I had fallen in love with a woman, was offered a job as a chef/administrator at a local restaurant and had grown fond of Ecuador. Little did I know... 🤣 So, I just went back to Germany to write my thesis, and back I came. All a very long time ago...
Chef, catwalk model and as we say in Dutch 'manusje van alles' ... AI translate says 'jack off all trades' as a best fit. Hear hear! 🙂
Exchange with Ecuador makes sense I suppose with environmental science. Really interesting to read you guys have such helpful community. Something to celibrate since as you wrote in the other post, it isn't that common 🥳
Yeah that fits it! I have many interests... Fashion was never one of them, but my girlfriend kind of influences that a lot. Can't avoid to be infected when she's so passionate about it. And when they talk about the ideas and how they create - it's a real art the way they do it, just like writing or music. And I can now distinguish between Flamé, Garbadine (medium and light), Rayón and Linnen. Would've never thought myself able to do so... 🤣
Always new things to discover and learn. It is for sure an adventure and an experience.
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Ah it'll be lovely to be home with Lily for Christmas.
I used to have a Baaba Maal album (Missing You) on CD back in 2004 that I loved. The guy who owned the health food shop back home (I got married in uk) sent me ten CDs of world music for our wedding. That was one.