Thursday, June 28, 2012

everyone has change for a $20

Post by my wonderful husband Loren.  (his wife was 2 weeks late in posting it...)

Reflections on culture after my first week back in the USA.
I just can’t flush the toilet paper.
It feels weird to take a shopping cart out of the store and to the car.
Everything food-like is premade and comes out of containers.
Drinking out of a tin can while mowing the lawn with my shirt off gives me a sense that I’m fitting in with the natives.
Water is instant and hot rather than waiting 30min for the tank to heat up and then having only 10min to shower before it gets cold.
I haven’t heard a car alarm since I left Quito and I’m still deciding whether that’s good or bad.
Everyone has an iPhone
Everyone lives in a ridonculously nice house.
Everyone has change for a $20
Food is expensive and electronics are cheap.
We rented a car for the first time in our lives when we got to Miami.  It took some time to find the trunk latch.  Once we were ready to go, to our surprise the car had no key hole... or key.  It just had a start button.  

That took a long time to figure out.  We felt a little uneducated at first, but the folks in the car next to us could not figure it out either.  

Using only a GPS we found Wendy’s and had a “small” meal. Which is bigger than the large in Ecuador.  


This is probably the first trip I’ve made back to the US that I have been excited and ready to be here.  Having friends and family that are eager to receive us has made a huge difference as well.  
We have been in the United States for just over a week... stay tuned to more adventures coming!


1 comment:

  1. Hilarious. But maybe I would fit in at Ecuador. I never have change for a $20... or a $10, 5 and in most cases a $1 either (although the new necessity for bus fare is slowly changing that). We've never had a car with a push button starter either. I kinda want one with an ejector button (at least to jettison the passenger), but I've been told that the NTSB won't approve it... yet. But I bet you might be able to get one in Ecuador, no? Let me know what you find out.

    love you guys,
    -Corbin

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