Our last day in Cuenca. We had our last class yesterday, miércoles (Weds), and had ‘graduation’ at lunch. I am still conjugating verbs in my sleep – preterito, pasado progresivo, presente simple, presente progressivo, futuro perifrastico, and futuro progresivo – Santiago came up with an extremely compute-intensive exercise on verbs and I have forgotten the dog’s name again (Olvidé mi perro nombre una vez más) as I did the first day of class when I thought my head would explode (just kidding, Molly, I didn’t really forget this time I just wanted to emphasize how hard I was working).
To warm up for graduation most of our group went to a local restaurant for a cuy lunch on martes (Tuesday). This restaurant was not your typical tourist place and specialized in the traditional Ecuadorian treat of roast guinea pig. It’s
Cuy dish
a very mild meat but sparse on the bony carcas. We each got 1/4 of the pig, with the best part the hind quarter, along with fried yucca with mayonnaise, habbas (like fava beans), and a cheese with molasses-like syrup for dessert.
The graduation at the Eucalyptus restaurant included all our group getting on stage individually, in cap & gown, to give a parting few parablas about their experiences and to receive their diploma from their tutor. Fue muy divertido and was followed by Cuban bolero music with one the students, and then by some rousing Ecuadorian music performed by 4 of our instructors.
To celebrate, J & J went to Tiesto’s for supper. What a wonderful meal! Fabulous food with some piquante salsa and a wonderful sauce for the shrimp and bunches of oh-so-tasty sides, meal (‘surf and turf’) chosen for us by the very personable chef-owner (and wonderful chef) who remembered what we had at the restaurant when we were there with our group three weeks ago (!), and a very nice small music group (drums, sax, guitar and a great singer). Such a fabulous evening!
Today we got to sleep in. And now we are packing. We fly to Quito tomorrow leaving the apartment at 7 am. We will fly home on Saturday with a flight leaving at 8:30 am (another early day). But we will be home (or should be anyway) on Sunday.
What an experience this has been! It’s hard to believe that four weeks have flown by and now it’s time to get back to reality.
On the Go with John and Jessie 