living life but really its a dream
jamie came to visit, and during that visit, i managed to steal a copy of keroac's on the road, which, consequently, is also in a way "stolen"--the book itself is bound, and like a normal book, but it is very obviously a bootleg copy of said book. it is weird, but i love it that much more because of it, i guess.

ecuador is awesome, sorry i've not been updating much. honestly, my life is not that exciting, on a daily basis. i spend a lot of time staring out the window at my amazing view (which you will hopefully be able to find in a link lower down, if i can get the damned pictures to upload). a lot of time. i work at a little cafe with a bunch of cool co-workers, who make the fact that i earn less than $3 an hour (thats after tips and my cut of the sales each night) less painful. they are awesome, and i wouldn't work there for free, but i work for no tips and shit pay without a real grudge, because i've made such amazing friends there.

i spend a fair amount of time thinking about what's going to happen when i leave, which now, as of a couple days ago, has an official date: i fly out of quito on may 14, spend a week in cozumel, mexico with my mom and john (yeah, we are scuba diving!!!) and fly into chicago o'hare (right where this whole adventure started so many months ago) at 11:32 PM on may 21. just so you all know. on continental airlines. go ahead and plan a big party in the airport for me if you want. i will spend at least a day in chicago, mostly because i want to, and partly because i think i won't make the last bus. obviously, it is the perfect chicago bread sandwich to my crazy world travel adventure. and my bike is still there, which makes me really happy. hopefully i still know how to ride--i haven't been on a bike at all since san pedro de atacama, chile; and haven't been on my fixed gear since i left in november. i miss you, 1983 blue trek!!!!

let's see, what else. this week nora and i flew to cuenca and chilled out there for a few days, we didn't really do much, but walk around, and went to see a movie, called the something something spiderwick. chronicles of spiderwick? it was a cool movie, in spanish. it would be boring in english, unless you are like 11. toby, you would like it no matter what. that's not meant to be an insult.

jamie and i went to the "amazon" but really we were just on the edge, in a weird little shuar pueblo, where there's a tiny nature preserve. as you will see from the photos (which are currently uploading, as far as i can tell) the trip was pretty self-involved. we spent a lot of time doing that annoying couple stuff, like staring at each other and making faces.

as far as the future goes, i'm planning to do a sweet repeat of last summer: bonnaroo (even more exciting lineup than last summer), working at barriques and some maintenance work on the side (moonlighting for more money in this case, i guess), crashing in jamie's room at phoenix, because he refuses to sleep in the big bed anyways, and someone ought to use it (but it might be leaving us before we want it to, because that bed is actually nahyun's, and nahyun is using nora's bed, and nora is gonna get that bed back from her... so if anybody has a double bed that they want to get rid of, let me know, or i'll be sleeping on a very uncomfortable futon this summer). THEN after the summer of working and rocking madison on my bike and going to as many music festivals that i can afford (they are addicting... flaming lips at 10,000 lakes fest!!!)

THEN, after all that crap, we are in theory moving to San Francisco. in theory, me, my little brother (who's not really that little anymore), soren, and possible others. really we'll probably find a house in oakland. i have some ideas for jobs to look for... there's some cool fucking stuff out there. any ideas, please let me know. i think i would be okay waiting tables for a few months, but really it would be nice to either be working construction (ya'll know me) or doing something that has a little more to do with my declared "interests" being ecology and peoples and making them happy and peaceful together. and gabriel garcia marquez too.

toby's coming, hopefully we will have a badass adventure at the end of april. then nora and i will go to the beach when she's done with class, then it will be time to leave. most of april i will be meditating, applying for jobs in california for the fall, and slinging mojitos at the bar. love to everyone.

photos finally uploaded: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2367336&l=9b789&id=8602808