Learning Spanish in Quito

Ilha Grande turned out to be good, I´ve seen similar in Asia so I was not totally amazed but I had a couple of nice days there before me and four others left for Paratay a small town with a nice little old quarter. There we spent one night. Friday me, Simon and Sean took the buss to Sao Paulo, I spent a few hours hanging out with them before I left for the airport to hang out there waiting for my 6 o clock flight to Quito. One afternoon in Sao Paulo was for me more than enough even though a Brazilian girl diagnosed me as insane leaving Sao Paulo on a Friday without experiencing the nightlife. So than I left Brazil, despite all warnings, without being mugged, killed or assaulted in anyway and I didn’t see any dead people either.

After a long night, long flight and awful delay in Lima and no pickup at the airport and some phone calls I ended up at my new home for the next two weeks. I will stay with Marcia and Jorge while I do my language course. Very nice couple that do not speak English, therefore the dictionary has been my best friend the last few days. I had my first class today and I now know more than ordering beer and hopefully I don’t encounter more serious problems ordering at restaurants. More because in Paratay when it was dinner time I eyed some bacalhau on the menu, for me this is a tomato based dish with potatoes, olives and fish (often Norwegian) - it is delicious. However I did want to assure that it was bone free and since bone was not in my portouguese/spanish vocabulary I really made a scene by doing some drawings and involving half of the restaurant to sort this out and finally the waiter could confirm that there were no bones present in the dish. Anyway, it ended in me having four small fried fish balls for dinner (boneless). How could I know that bacalhau actually means just cod in Spanish…


Since I never got a picture of me at Ipanema here is one taken in Kirkenes visiting Gunhild this summer. The only appropriate way to wear a bikini in Norway, with wool underneath