Day 77 Wednesday 7 July – Visa extended

Yuhu! I am finally officially allowed to stay in the country until august 18! That’s the day I leave, I know, so I hope I don’t miss my flight or something else bad happens. Good thing is that I saved $170,- on my visa, because it only got extended for less than 30 days. Now my discount is either because of that, or because I said I’m going to do some volunteer work (for Kallari). No matter, I’m happy and I can take extra chocolate home! I can actually take about 23kg of chocolate home, because I also found out I can take 2 bags of 23kg back in the plane. Who wants to buy some real and delicious Ecuadorian chocolate?!

Day 76 Tuesday 6 July – John Travolta the waiter

In the morning, Mari called me to ask if I could fill in for an hour for her at the café today and 3 other days. She’s doing admission exams for her university and can’t quit her job altogether. This shift she asks me to fill in for is right at the moment of the semi-finals between the Netherlands and Uruguay, but hey, what kind of an excuse is that.

Some Zeezicht feelings actually surfaced while doing my job, washing the dishes, cleaning up tables. It felt good to do something practical for a change. Funny thing is that people didn’t even act surprised to see a tall, blond, Dutch guy waitering.

But I won’t miss the finals on Sunday! In the evening I encountered some people with the Dutch flags painted on their cheeks in a restaurant, so I went ahead and asked them where the Dutchies are watching the game. So Sunday, in the Corner Pub (Amazonas) I’ll be!