World Cup Final

Spent my afternoon at Wingers in Guayaquil, a sports bar down here in Ecuador owned and run by a gringo like me. Downstairs were the Spanish expat supporters and upstairs were the Netherlands expats. Since one of my fellow teachers is Dutch, we joined her.

Good food, and it was as much fun watching the fans of the two countries as watching the game. Pics to come.

Just Sitting Here Watching...

...the world pass by. It is Friday afternoon and school is out. I have a bag full of exams and papers to grade and at home I have two novels beckoning. Tonight I have a gathering of some expats who are celebrating one of them finally getting permission to marry here in Ecuador (a four month process). At home there is a wife and housefull of dogs and cats and who knows what. So I decided for a time out.

So here I am, sitting at a comfortable table at a "Sweet and Coffee" - Ecuador's version of Starbucks. A minute ago John Lennon was doing his "Just Sitting Here Watching..." which is the inspiration for the title to this little post. Right now the opening bars of "Eye of the Tiger" are picking up, and meanwhile I am sipping on a brandy expresso with whipped cream, watching the life of Guayaquil pass by..

Okay, now I remember. THIS IS WHY WE MOVED TO ECUADOR.

So Similar - Yet so Different

School is over for the day, and I have a depressing stack of papers to grade. So it is another "Grade Date" with the wife, which is fine by me. For the moment, though, I have foregone the act of grading and instead I'm checking out the crowd. This is mostly forced on me since my laptop battery is low and the only table close to an available outlet is a wobbly thing that would make reading and marking papers to be pure torture.

I am sitting in the food court of "Mall del Sol" in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a modern mall that in many ways looks like something right out of the USA catalog. Down the way is a Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell and Burger King. Behind me is a McDonald's and an entrance to a Tony Roma's. Over by the corner I can see just a corner of the local theater's Cinemark sign. Thankfully, these altars to American fast food hegemony are surrounded by more local establishments like Comida Tipica Nacional and Pinguino.

There are other differences too. There is a massive widescreen monitor here that is showing the live soccer finale for the Europa League. The people are dressed very similarly to their Norteamericano cousins still have much different racial mixes - lots of Latinos and Mestizos but not a single African (too poor to come to a mall like this) for instance.

Starting Up Again

After taking a time away from writing I've decided to get back in the saddle, with this blog as a way to reach out to the world and hopefully keep me on track. I am a 49-year-old US citizen living in Guayaquil, Ecuador. By day I teach at a local school, while at night I write - mostly business and travel pieces. I am the author of one book - The Brit's Guide to Las Vegas - and the story of how a US guy, living in Ecuador, wrote a book about Sin City for a London publisher is a story in and of itself.

My goals are to get back into doing a steady stream of articles for Internet and print sources. I am also working on a novel. I have written two novels before, but they were true garbage that I will never allow to see the light of day.