Monday, September 7, 2015

An expat family’s move to Cuenca; handling the details and settling in, Sep. 7, 2015


By Christopher Lux
With everything sold but our house back in North Carolina, in September last year my son and I arrived in Cuenca. We came ahead of my wife since she had to wait for cooler weather to bring our two large Catahoula Leopard dogs on the plane.chl chris col logo
I had to start my new job, and my son came along. Together we went to meetings, workshops, conferences, and classes. Nobody seemed to mind the four-year-old coloring and reading in the corner of the room.

When we first arrived, we stayed in an Airbnb apartment near El Centro. Dano, the owner of the apartment, drove us to a furniture store to buy beds for our house. He showed us the market where we could by affordable furniture and gave advice about keeping dogs in Ecuador.

Our house was rented for us a month earlier by our extended family who happened to be living in Cuenca. Our first week, they took us to dinner, showed us around town, and helped us get the house ready to move into. We lined up painters and a plumber to make a few changes.

After a week in the Airbnb, we moved into our house. It didn’t feel like home at first. We were in a new country, and we were in a neighborhood far away from El Centro and other gringos.



 Soon, as cooler weather arrived in the States, my wife and the dogs arrived in Quito.


 The dogs were too big to fly from Quito to Cuenca,


 so we arranged to have them driven down by the famous Journeyman Jack who specializes in relocation. 


Jack and the dogs drove through the night. My wife stayed in a hotel and flew to Cuenca the next day.



 She arrived early in the morning and the dogs made it a little later in the morning. ....<read more> http://www.cuencahighlife.com/an-expat-familys-move-to-cuenca-handling-the-details-and-settling-in/


Saturday, September 5, 2015

Unschooling the Big Blue Marble: Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Unschooling the Big Blue Marble: Leavin' on a Jet Plane:

Saturday, 5 September 2015-

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

We bought our tickets for the U.S. today.  I spent all day working out the flights.  We wanted to fly into New York from Guayaquil or Quito and then take a bus to Cleveland because the savings are huge!  So, after a lot of back and forth I finally found an itinerary that would work.

We are flying to Quito the night of the 28th and then hanging around the airport all night.  The flight to New York leaves at 7:00am and we will arrive in New York City at 5:00pm....<read more> http://unschoolingthebigbluemarble.blogspot.com/