This morning was the Second Annual Expat Day, in which the city of Cuenca holds a small festival (seems there is a festival every week here) for expats.  The idea is to have expats meet local businesses, be welcomed to the city, etc.  Unfortunately, whoever set it up is a moron… 🙁

Once the music started up, it was so extremely loud that it hurt eardrums, and made it completely impossible to hold any conversation at all.  So here are expats with broken Spanish trying to speak to local businesses who spoke almost no English, and the music is blaring so loud that neither can hear the other.

I left within a minute of the noise starting, and I saw the place mostly empty out as almost all the expats got out of eardrum damage range.

These morons were more interested in being heard across town than in helping the cause they were supposed to be working for.

When we were almost a block away, we happened to see Dave also leaving.  We had seen him twice at the Jazz Society performances, and also at other places.  He seemed to be everywhere, and we stopped and talked for awhile.  Turns out he is a CPA from Florida who moved to Cuenca 16 months ago.  While we were talking, just about every other expat that was fleeing the noise said hi to him by name.  He is very active in the expat community and seemed to know just about everyone.

We had tasted a delicious Ecuadorian cognac the prior week and asked him if he knew about it.  Nope, he didn’t drink, but he snagged another passing friend, who knew exactly what we were talking about and where to get it.  The afternoon was salvaged ironically by a successful trip to a tiny local liquor store. 🙂

Walking back we came across another impromptu performance.  A rock band was playing on a local terrace while angel dancers performed on the street below.

Tonight we went to a potluck party with some of Evelyn’s new art friends.  The food was mostly quite tasty and served as a very nice alternate dinner.  The home was stunning, and I fell instantly in love with it.  We are going to check out the neighborhood in coming weeks, and may find ourselves there in the future ourselves…