Look What I Won!

When you're addicted to travel, but not a wealthy person, you have
to save money anywhere you can. That's one of the reasons I read
Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations Blog. He provides some great
insight about where to go if you don't have a lot of money, yet still
have a great experience in that destination. As a travel writer, I'm
sure Tim acquires quite a few travel gadgets in his travels and
occasionally, he gives some of them away. A few weeks ago, Tim
was giving away some items and I saw something that had my name
on it! It was a Laptop Sleeve made by Woolrich. Woolrich is kind
of the Pendleton Woolen Mills of the east and they've been famous
for making woolen goods for many years.

According to Tim:
"A PR person from Woolrich gave it to me at a trade show and it would
really make a statement to pull this wool laptop sleeve out in a coffee
shop in Burlington, Montreal, or Seattle. But for the foreseeable future
I’m living in warm and sunny places…You can’t buy this sleeve in a store.
It’s something they made special in the factory for a giveaway. It fits
13-inch laptops and netbooks."

Several days ago, I received an email from Tim that I had won the
laptop sleeve. Woo Hoo! Today I received it in the mail. Taking it
with me to Antarctica this season will definitely be putting it to good use!

iPhone

I have officially entered the 21st Century! Lynn lost her cell phone
in the earthquake and my phone was about 10 years old and pretty
much unusable. We bit the bullet and went down to the AT&T store.
Yes, we've heard that Verizon has much better range and coverage,
but we've never been thrilled with the lack of customer service we've
received from them and many of our friends have told us they feel
the same. Anyway, we walked into the store and were immediately
treated really nicely. They were running a special on iPhones since
they are in the process of introducing a new model and are trying
to get rid of these. I can't really tell much of a difference, and
considering the newest version was about $300 more each!!!...
I'm glad we chose what we did. It has most of the bells and
whistles and to be honest, that's what I'll use mine for anyway,
since I'm not much of a phone person. Lynn, on the other hand,
will probably use hers more than I will to talk to others, but she's
not on the phone that much either. Regardless, we are now in the
correct century and are able to communicate with pretty much anyone
else in the world via cell phones...except Antarctica, which doesn't
have cell coverage!

En el Norte de Quito

We looked around the New Town area of Quito today and found
this nice little boating area in Parque de Carolina. Lots of families
out today since it's a Saturday.


On three of the four corners of this very large park (Think Central Park
in New York) are shopping malls. We stopped by the El Jardin and
the wealthier people of Quito definitely don't want for lack of
selction when it comes to their shopping. The big grocery chain
here is Maxi...either SuperMaxi or MegaMaxi which is kind of like
a Super Wal-Mart. Many of the expats here call them Maxi Pads!


Ecuador is a coffee growing country but not a lot of it is exported
to the United States. However, a face familiar to many in the
States is Juan Valdez. Similar to a Starbucks, we've seen several
of these cafes in Quito and are run jointly between the Ecuadoran
and Colombian coffee growers.


Where would the world be without Apple Computers? I would guess
that Ecuadorans aren't as Mac crazy as Americans since very few
people were in this store while we were visiting, but it did provide
a good quick way to check our email.


We walked around the neighborhood of our hostel a bit and
found this street/stairway that was taunting us. However, the
stairway won, since there was no way our oxygen-challenged
lungs were going to tackle this monster! However, three dogs
seemed to be enjoying the view as they chatted amongst
themselves, including the spaniel on the stairs and the
boxer on the roof.