by Garret on June 30, 2009
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but every country has a distinct smell. If you travel much you will definitely start to notice. People have their own smell, homes have their own smell, cities have their own smell, collectively adding up to a distinct national smell. As we approached Quito on our flight in you could see it sparkling below stretched out in the Andes like a river. The city is about 3 miles wide and 25 miles long. I anticipated everything but the smell. It took me a little while for the smell to register but once at our hotel I remarked to Deeanne “this smells like Ecuador.” This brought back fond memories for me. I won’t tell you which countries smell badly so as not to offend anyone.
Two friends, both doctors, told me the sense of smell and emotional memory are strongly connected because of their location in the brain. This may be due to the olfactory system’s close anatomical ties to the limbic system and hippocampus, areas of the brain that are known to be involved in emotion and place memory. It is hard to describe the smell of Ecuador but I will give it a try. Imagine taking powdered laundry detergent (the cheap kind) mixing that with fresh air, throw in a whiff of trash rotting, and a combine some rubber from a tennis ball, there you have it the smell of Ecuador. You may think this is negative but realize this is 3 parts fresh laundry detergent to 1 part other trace smells.
A typical day in Ecuador smells like this. You wake up to fresh laundry detergent. The soap in the bathroom smells like… well soap, the basic kind. The room smells musty; not the normal musty, but high altitude musty. The 6 blocks from our hotel to the language school smell, in no particular order, of burning trash, bananas, and freshly baked bread. We stop for the bananas and bread and skirt the burning trash smell. For the return trip it has rained and so smells like fresh rain with a hint of burnt trash, stale bread, ripe bananas, and wet dog. We take a deep breath when we walk into our room – the smell is refreshingly homey [high altitude musty].
Deeanne feeds a cute stray on the street by our hotel
Our Room in Plaza Internacional Quito
by Deeanne on June 29, 2009
We arrived last night around 11 pm into Quito. As we were leaving the plane, the flight attendants passed out medical masks to everyone, and told us that we wouldn’t be allowed to disembark the plane and go to customs unless we wore one. As we stood in the customs and immigration line, we couldn’t help but wonder how the customs agents were going to be able to tell if we were the people we said we were, since 2/3 of our face was blocked with the mandatory masks. We also wondered how exactly it benefits the country to require incoming passengers to wear masks for about 10 minutes, before being released into the country at large. Hmmm… our Spanish didn’t allow us to inquire further into the matter.
Useless H1N1 masks
We’re staying at the Hotel Plaza Internacional while we look for more long-term accommodations. Our Spanish lessons begin tomorrow, and we will each have our own teacher for four hours of private instruction each day. My first impressions of Quito are really positive– it is not nearly as busy or hectic as I thought it would be. Everyone seems friendly and helpful. I’m not gasping for oxygen due to altitude; but then again, I haven’t tried running yet. Although I know I’m not supposed to flush toilet paper here; I’ve already forgotten three times! At least I haven’t forgotten about drinking the tap water yet.
by Garret on June 27, 2009
I gotta say, I love flying. I am writing this as we cruise at 35,267ft. Interstate 5 was a breeze and we arrived at LAX with plenty of time. Airports always make me smile. People are fascinating and there is no place like the airport. The sense of excitement was palpable, especially when we got to security. Alarms go off and Deeanne’s purse is clearly the culprit. The TSA guy calls another security lady over to search Deeanne’s purse. It doesn’t take her more than a second to pull out a 3 inch knife. Deeanne looks at me of course, I just shrug and then pretend I don’t know her. The TSA lady asks her if she would like to keep it and she says “no” and then we are on our way.
I love the excitement and sense of freedom flying brings, especially when you combine it with large knives. Sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off is thrilling and once you get airborne it is just beautiful up there. Today there are blankets of puffy clouds below. It looks as if you could stretch out on them and take the best nap you’ve ever had. I know for many people flying is not a pleasant experience. If you are the type of person that gets nervous on flights try these tips the next time you fly.
- Focus on helping someone around you. It will distract you.
- Start at your belly and breathe in through your noise out through your mouth.
- Close your eyes and visualize a place you love.
- Repeat a mantra (Deeanne’s favorite).
