Welcome Back BOOM!

Well, we’re back from our summer vacation and ready to start year 2 out of our 2 year contract. Shannon and I had an incredible trip and while it wasn’t exactly restful, we were able to see many of our family and friends. It was excellent but I will let the story of the summer be Shannon’s to write. I’ll pick up with the journey home.

The journey home starts with the ever difficult process of getting Howie to travel with us. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of leaving him in Florida for two months again and then the expense of going back to get him. It was too much money, time, and hassle on me and Shannon’s family. So Shannon and I resolved to bring him back with us and fly in August. If you remember anything about the post from earlier in the year that meant we needed to have weather under 85 degrees (in August in Florida) and take care of the paperwork.

The school booked our trips for the summer for us so we kind of just had to deal with what they signed us up for. We ended up having a 4pm return flight out of Miami. After realizing that the weather would be impossible to counter that time of year and day in Miami, I arranged to switch our flights to a midnight departure redeye hoping the weather would cooperate. The change only cost us about $300.

Well the day came and after getting all of Howie’s paperwork taken care of and saying our goodbyes, we piled into the minivan we rented that would fit the luggage and Howie and made our way down to Miami. I have personally sworn to myself never to own a minivan but this thing was less minivan and more road yacht. This behemoth contained glorious leather captain’s chairs, 431 cup holders, tvs, velvet roped off VIP areas, and bottle service. (Don’t worry it was water, we were driving after all)

We hit the road and we were promptly smacked in the face with thunderstorms and gale force winds that blew sawgrass into our road yacht’s windshield throughout our four hour drive from Orlando to Miami that were meant to remind us via living postcard what Florida had to offer. When we finally got to the airport we managed struggled flailed around with our Howie and his crate and 6 suit cases full of new clothing and exclusively U.S. sauces, M&Ms, and Shannon’s beauty products. I imagine the scene we were portraying is exactly what you’d see if you were a 19^th century prairie dweller and we were making our way up the Oregon Trail, but without the covered wagon to keep us organized. 

When we got to the actual airport, we were told that our check in gate was on the far end of the airport and we would have to walk our prairie equipment approximately 14 miles until we got there. At one point, the luggage that was precariously perched on Howie’s crate caused his crate to slide off of the luggage cart and send him and his crate slowly tipping over. I dove to catch him from what would have probably been a near fatal 9 inch fall to the ground and balanced the crate, luggage, and my temper as if I were the blind Lady of Justice, Themis, balancing her scales of righteousness.  

When we got him to the gate and checked in, we walked him over to the TSA check in and 80% of the airline staff came over to pet him, fawn over him, and coo over his existence. I imagine this made the 20+ people still waiting in line behind us a little frustrated but whatever.

After the check-in we had a relatively uneventful flight with the only inconvenience being the sharp kneecap of a 6 year old girl stabbing into my lower back as if performing some sort of rudimentary Andean acupuncture.

When we landed we took a few cabs home and slept through the rest of the morning only to wake up to hear that the volcano Cotopaxi had erupted that morning. So we landed and about an hour later a volcano explodes to welcome us home. Well to be more accurate, it was a plume of ash that shot 2 miles in the air. No lava at the time. It’s still in a precarious state but here we are three days later with not too much happening since. (Furiously knocking on wood) However, even though it hasn't been too bad so far the country is in a state of emergency as a result of the eruption and there are concerns about the volcano's snow capped mountains melting due to magma flow and causing mud slides. Let's hope for the best for everyone in Ecuador and the towns directly surrounding the volcano. 

The next day we got in our car to load up on groceries to see that our battery had died in our car as a result of no driving it for 2+ months. We called around and eventually found some jumper cables. After talking to a few people, this exact thing happened to 5 people while they were gone.

I feel bad for the new teachers. They usually arrive a week before the rest of the staff for orientation and during their orientation week they had school canceled one day due to protests in the city, and canceled another day due to the volcano, and canceled a third day in anticipation of the Quitonian Zombie Apocalypse. Only one of those things is fake. Imagine that being your first week in a new country!

We go back to work tomorrow and in the meantime we’re settling in and meeting up with some of our friends. While living in another country poses omnipresent difficulties, we are anticipating and hoping to have a smoother transition this year. We won’t have to find our way around town via taxi, buy a car, find an apartment, dry our hair by space heater, do laundry in the sink, or boil water for hot showers. We’ve figured out a lot of that stuff and we’re at a point where we can simply live a somewhat normal life aboard. Here’s to another good year in Quito and hopefully another year worth of good times to experience and stories to write.