Good news

  Late last week we got an e-mail from Gabriella Espinosa's ( our attorney for immigration ) office telling us we could go to Quito to do the paperwork for our Censo's and Cedula's. We booked a flight on Aerogal for Sunday afternoon and arrived in the capital city of Ecuador late Sunday afternoon.  We had found a very good price at the Dann Carlton Hotel on Booking.com so that is where we stayed. It is a very nice hotel and without the special pricing we would not have been able to  stay there.

Our room

The hotel lobby

  Monday morning we went to the attorney's office and although we were eager to get started we had to wait for the attorney's assistants to get our paperwork ready before we could head to the government offices. An hour later we were ready to go.
  When we got to the censo office, our first stop, we had 58 people ahead of us. the assistant who was with us said it would take about 3 hours. It actually took 5 and then we were off to the next office to get our cedula's. If you have to go thru this process you might consider taking snacks and drinks as the process is slow but you don't want to leave the building just in case something happens and your number is called. We were thinking we would surely have to spend another day in Quito because the last Aerogal flight was at 5:45. At the next office our helper was able to get us some special attention and we were moved along pretty quickly. We answered the necessary questions affirming what was on the official forms we had filled out and submitted through Gabriella's office, we were fingerprinted and photographed and faster than what we believed would be possible we were in a cab and headed back to Gabriella's office to get the luggage we had left there that morning. 
  We had a special request for double cheeseburger's from Mickey D's (Cuenca doesn't have a MacDonald's) from our friends Mick and Kathy Wesson (Metamorphasis: Changing to retirement, blogspot) so we made a quick stop across the street for the burgers and fries that would be our celebratory dinner if we were able to make the flight.
  We made the flight with little time to spare and the burgers and fries tasted pretty darn good when we ate them that evening in our condo inspite of having to reheat them in the microwave.
  Today, we went to the airport to pick up our  cedulas that Gabriella's retrieved for us after they were actually printed.  We are excited to be official residents of Ecuador. We can now start the process to have our household goods shipped to us from North Carolina

Waiting for the free bread coupon

 As I have said before I often spend time drinking coffee at the "Coffee Tree". Last Saturday I took this picture of some of the ladies who come to the church next door to get a coupon for bread. I don't know how long this has been going on but I thought the traditional garb and the buildings in the back ground make it look almost timeless.
  Hasta Pronto,
Dale and Joan