We spent five hours today enjoying an Oktoberfest experience in Cuenca, Ecuador. The woman who hosted the event at her home has been in Cuenca thirteen (trece) years. She owned and operated a restaurant here for few years and now she does cooking classes two days a week and she offers a monthly event. This month was Oktoberfest.
We were joined by eight other folks plus our host and her beau. All of us were from the US expat with the exception of the beau who is from Cuenca but attended university in the States and worked and traveled there for several years before coming back South. He comes from one of the 'established' Cuenca families and he told us about his home (36 bedrooms with a 350X15 swimming pool. He was thoroughly engaging and completely charming. Our host was also personable and fascinating.
We knew and have spent time with two of the other couples and the two new acquaintance couple were also very engaging and interesting folk. The meal was wonderful and the wine flowed. A great time. Dinner for two with six glasses of a nice white wine (vino blanco) was $44.00.
But what really caught my attention (leave it to me) was this. A very common conversation theme here amongst the ex-pats is 'things that you can't get here'. The list almost exclusively made up of food stuffs like; horse radish, Fritos, Dejon mustard, French onion soup mix, rice-a-roni. Mostly this conversation revolves around methods folks have devised to simulate or replicate these items out available ingredients. In lieu of this, where they can be found for purchase in either original or replicated form.
Todays' 'I can't get it here' discussion was also a familiar one. It revolved around Netflix and Roku. Ways to make these systems work, but more importantly what shows are now accessible. I find this conversation fascinating and ironical. Because, as interesting, social, charming and diverse as these people are, the TV shows that captivate them, thoroughly bore me.
Different strokes.