The Sweet and the Sour

---

First the sweet. Last Thursday was Corpus Christi, a Catholic feast day, that kicked off a week of festivities in Cuenca. Our guidebooks tell us that this holiday absorbed several harvest festival traditions that predate the arrival of Spanish to Ecuador, so even for a pretty Catholic country this celebration seems bigger than usual. We've now seen a lot of holidays here - Carnival, Cuenca Day, Battle of Pichincha Day - but Corpus Christi could be the best as it involves some serious eating. The town's central Parque Calderon becomes a giant candy store as wall-to-wall vendors sell all kinds of chocolates, cookies, and meringues. While there hardly needs to be an occasion to warrant fireworks here, the displays this week have seemed particularly large. And on Thursday night, there was a big "Fiesta de la Música", where we stayed up entirely too late and drank entirely too much canelazo for a school night, but had an excellent time with our friends Jack, Dameon, and Karen.

The weather hasn't entirely cooperated with showers throughout the entire weekend, but an outdoor music and food festival couldn't have come at a better time for us. Facebook has made keeping in touch so easy, but it is currently taunting us with messages about the Chicago summer festivities and Taste of Chicago gorging. The sweets smorgasbord in Cuenca may not be as artery clogging as a ribs sandwich followed by deep-dish pizza followed by a plate of Harry Caray's house fires and frozen Eli's cheesecake on a stick, but at least there were treats. And there is no way that the music was on the level of Millennium Park's Music Without Borders, but there was music sung in a language we didn't understand. (DCA(SE) - Can you tell Chris misses you!)

Clearly we've been thinking about home. Why? Because in the midst of our sugar rush, we had some visa hiccups, and our little expat adventure sort of depends on having a visa. As of last Thursday, we weren't sure we were going to be able to stay in Ecuador past July 31, kind of a bummer since our teaching job continues until July 29. We tried to get a six month student visa through our Spanish school, but that didn't work. Other options included getting a job at an English language school or starting our own business, but neither was going to happen by the end of June - our deadline for a visa extension application. Our employer told us that we could get a tourist extension, but several sources including the visa office's website said that wasn't possible with our current visa (a 12-IX visa for anyone wondering). However, just so that we could say we tried everything, we trudged into the visa office on Friday, fully expecting to hear that we had to depart in a month. Our hungover faces from the music festivities the night before must have looked really desperate, because Carolina (mentioned by name because she was super awesome) agreed to a three month extension. It's not the six months we hoped for, but we'll take it.

After that three months, we hear Chicago beckoning, but not just yet. We know you, Chicago, it may be sunny and beautiful and fun right now - but that visa will run out at the end of October, and who moves back to Chicago in November?

---