Almost had another panic attack today. Lily and I will travel to Germany in a week. Usually, I use her Ecuadorian passport to get out of Ecuador and back into it, and her German passport to land in Amsterdam and Germany, and get out. Well, "usually" is a bit of a reach - we only did that once. Anyway, her mom has her Ecuadorian passport, and I had only checked the expiration dates on our German passports. Not good. Today I woke up, thinking about that, and remembered that I had a scan in my dropbox. And, yeah, it's a bit tricky - the passport expires 8 days after we're back in Ecuador.
Big scare. Immediately, I started writing the people I know have connections into the according places. And of course, I got conflicting results. Didn't help. But then, at today's Coffee Festival here in Cotacachi, I bumped into the family that first took me in - they're half french. No worries, they said. As long as the passport that Lily travels on (which is the German), no problem at all. I'm a bit relieved now. But I'll try to get the passport next week, anyway.
C., in whose bar I lived and worked and whose family the mentioned above is, has formed since then a spectacular band. A mix of all kind of styles. He's an amazing guitarist, playing lead in the song above.
When I wrote the video post about the catwalk that I modeled in, I also thought about how much my friendships have changed over the years. When I arrived in Cotacachi 11 years ago, there weren't many young people around. My best friend was/is 12 years older than me. Even my wife was 9 years older than me. Strange.
That has changed now. So many younger people have moved to town, and formed their own sub-community, a wonderful mix of locals and expats from all over the world. I enjoy the experience that older folks bring with, and was able to learn a lot from it - but it's also great to be around my own generation.
When J., the friend mentioned above, left Ecuador, she made me a CD with favorite songs. Dez Mona's "Carry on" was one of our favorites to listen to while slowly getting drunk on cheap whiskey. Or was it rum? I'm not sure. It's a different kind of song, with a beautiful background music, and a very unusual voice.
I've come far in the last weeks. Was able to arrange a lot of things, so I won't have too much trouble during my vacation. Christmas with my family in germany. Wow. It's been a while. 2012 was the last time. I'm not looking forward to the weather, but to Lily's smiles and happiness, as well as my dad who can't travel anymore. It'll be worth it.
One of my favorite goosebumps songs. I might have shared it before. But I just stumbled upon it again, so here it is. I hope I'll be able to see Mumford & Sons live one day.
I wish you all a wonderful Saturday!
Post written for the #saturdayselections by Galenkp inviting us to share music in the Weekend Experiences community on Saturdays.
Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI.
