Quito

We´ve been in Quito for 3 days now and leaving for Otavalo today. Unfortunately I don´t have any pictures to show yet as I somehow managed to leave my camera behind and I won´t see it for another week and a half when Sandy meets us in Peru. Dammit!

So the first day in Quito was mostly a write-off we made it till about 2pm and thought we´d have a little siesta and ended up sleeping for 5 hours in the afternoon. I think we were all a bit knackered from the 30hr trip and slight lack of oxygen due to altitude.

The second day was much better - we wandered round the old town which was lovely (much much nicer than the rest of Quito). We got some ok coffees (not quite Melbourne standard, but better than the nasty instant stuff we´ve been drinking).

changing of the guard

In the afternoon we took a bus trip to Mitad del Mundo (the equator monument). The monument is supposed to be standing right on the equator, but turns out the French got it wrong by a couple of hundred meters, but decided to leave it there. We got all the obligatory photos: jumping over the equator etc. I did a handstand over the line which turned out pretty well (after a few failed attempts using the timer on the camera).

Mitad del Mundo (Equator monument)

Yesterday was a pretty epic day. We thought we´d see how we were going with altitude by climbing Rucu Pichincha (which is almost 5000m above sea level - Quito is around 2000m, I think). It was a pretty hard slog. You can only manage about 20 steps uphill before you feel like you´ve run in the 800m final and have to stop to catch your breath. So it was very stop-start. We almost made it to the summit, but we got surrounded by thick clouds which made visibility pretty difficult, plus up the top there were hardly any footholds and we were trying to scramble up sand which was extremely tiring. It also got really cold and my fingers felt like they were about to freeze off, not to mention it was starting to rain. So we did the sensible thing and turned back. I was pretty glad, I can tell you.

The summit, obscured by clouds

some pretty scenery along the way

close to the top, almost a 45 degree slope, covered in sand

Sam got altitude sickness on the way down and looked like death warmed up. I didn´t feel great either - I got the characteristic pounding headache, but wasn´t vomiting like Sam was. I think it probably hasn´t helped that I´ve managed to pick up a cold and am not feeling 100%. Hopefully I´ll get over that soon.

Anyway, we´re off to Otavalo today (home of the famous textile market - YAY!!)

Until next time....

Adios!

PS for more photos, go here

Five minutes of relaxing..

Sitting down on the couch with a Friday beer for 5 minutes of relaxing, before:


Packing for 8 weeks overseas.


Cleaning entire house in anticipation of house-inspection next week.


6.30am flight tomorrow. 28hrs of flying.



I feel tired already.

........but extremely excited!!!

Visual goodies

Today I thought I'd introduce you to one of my favourite artists, Yellena James.

I stumbled across her art about a year ago and absolutely loved it straight away. It's such a cool combination of whimsical, modern, edgy... I don't really know what to call it, but I love it.

I bought this print (above) at the start of the year, as well as a couple of others, but wouldn't you know it - I haven't had them framed yet! I really have to get them done before Christmas.

I think I might hang them in my sewing room, since there's not a lot of arty inspiration in there yet.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I like my art fairly abstract...

Some of her stuff makes me think of an underwater scene and reminds me of the scuba diving we did in Thailand. Mmmm diving.....

I think I want to buy some more of her prints.....

Father's day

It's funny how today can start out like every other Sunday, and then give you an experience so surreal you're unlikely to forget it for a very long time.


Tonight Ryan and I were going to dinner at a friends' place in Brunswick. We thought the invitation was for 6.30pm, so were still getting ready when Ryan double-checked the invitation and realised it was for 6ish. By this stage we realised we were running a bit late, so Ryan volunteered to duck to the bottleshop around the corner from our house to grab a couple of bottles of wine while I dried my hair.

About 10 minutes later I'd finished drying my hair and Ryan still wasn't back. I thought maybe he hadn't left as soon as I'd started drying my hair, or maybe he'd spent a while deliberating over which wines to get... or maybe he'd gotten into a conversation with the guy at the bottleshop. I was mildly annoyed because we were already late and I was ready to go.

Another 10 minutes passed and I started trying to work out how long he'd been gone for. I thought I worked out that he must have been gone for at least 20-25 minutes... that can't be right...check the watch again. I started to get a bit anxious and then realised he didn't have his phone on him. I paced up and down a few times then went downstairs - surely he must be walking up the driveway by now?

I looked out the door. No Ryan. Then the sound of a siren close by. That sounds quite close. But again, it didn't really register because we hear sirens all the time around here. Nothing could have happened to Ryan - he just went around the corner to get some wine. He didn't even have to cross the road or anything, and I didn't hear car crash noises or anything that would make me think anything had happened.

I went downstairs again, because I was getting really anxious by now, and looked down the driveway. This time a figure comes sprinting up from the dark, and it's Ryan. He ran up to me, covered in sweat and blurts out that he's just been giving CPR to someone on the footpath for the last 10 minutes, he thinks he broke about 4 of the guy's ribs, that the ambulance is here now, and can I call our friends to let them know what's happened and that we'll be late. He said he's going to go back and to come out after I've called our friends.

So I went out onto the street, and a few doors up is an ambulance and a fire truck with its floodlight directed down to this middle-aged guy on the footpath, with about 3 ambulance officers and at least a couple of emergency firefighters. Ryan's got his arms around some poor girl (Claire) about my age, and I find out it's her father. They'd been driving home after what I can only assume was a father's day outing and he'd started having a fit in the car. She pulled over in our street and the first Ryan knew of it was hearing a gurgling noise and the girl calling for help.



The ambulance officers have the guy hooked up to a heart-rate monitor and are giving him CPR and shots of adrenaline. He's got the manual ventilator tube down his throat so you can clearly see his face, which is deathly grey and his eyes are open and glazed. We're all watching on, and watching the heart-rate monitor, hoping for some kind of heart-rate on there each time they use the defibrillator. It seems like a really long time that this is going on. I think they tried the defibrillator at least 3 or 4 times while I was watching. At this stage I'm pretty sure the guy is unlikely to make it, and then a really weak and erratic heart-beat shows up on the monitor. We all stand around, intensely watching the monitor, willing the beats per minute up. It makes it up to about 39bpm and slowly climbs to about 45.

Eventually he seems to stabilise at around 49bpm and they decide it's time to move him into the ambulance and take him to emergency.

At this point, we're still late for dinner, still don't have the wine.... what do we do? It seems trivial to walk off now and buy wine for a nice dinner, but what else can you do? Ryan, still shaken goes home for a shower and I grab his wallet and continue on to the bottleshop around the corner. I walk in, dazed and realise I only have $30 in cash and since it's not my wallet, don't have any access to eftpos or visa. It takes me forever to calculate which 2 bottles I can get for under $30 and I think the woman behind the counter must have thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn't do basic maths.

So I end up driving to our friend's place and Ryan and I had a bit of a talk about what happened. I asked him how he went with remembering CPR. Turns out he'd never done a first aid course and didn't know CPR at all apart from what he'd seen on tv.

I think it's fairly safe to say that he'll be getting his first aid certification pretty soon after we get back from our trip.

You really never know when you might need it.

So I think this is a timely reminder to brush up on your first aid knowledge. Do a course, or a refresher course if you've done one before.

I'm really proud that Ryan handled things as well as he did, and even though he was completely shaken by the whole experience I'm fairly sure that if something like that happened again he'd be a lot more confident in dealing with the situation.

I really hope the guy is ok and lives to see many more fathers days....


St John's Ambulance

Threadbare

Argh! I hate running out of thread! I can't believe I only bought one reel of the navy blue. I'm beginning to realise that 100m of thread doesn't go as far as I thought.

I'm really going to have to make a list next time I go to Spotlight. I tend to go in with a fair idea of what I need to get, but as soon as I get there I'm like a deer in headlights.

I end up standing in front of all the thread for about 10 minutes with my mind blank, and I can't actually remember what I needed to get. I get distracted by all the other colours....'what if this isn't the right shade of green... is it this one?....no, I'm sure it's this one....better get both....ooh, that's a pretty colour!.....etc'. Usually I end up walking out with a bunch of colours that don't match any of the materials I have, and then don't get enough of the colours I actually need.

Oh well, looks like I'm making a trip to Spotlight tomorrow.

Running out of thread (or any supplies) mid-creative frenzy is up there with my least favourite things about sewing. I've come to realise I'm developing a list of favourite and least favourite parts of bag making, which I thought I'd share.

Least favourites:

Cutting out pattern pieces. I'm not really sure why I don't like this part. I think it probably has something to do with being so far from holding the finished product in my hand.

Pressing seams flat. Usually because the bag is already an awkward shape that doesn't fit on the ironing board or Elna press, and I don't have a sleeve board. I think I'm about to overcome this though, by buying an oven-mitt and just shoving my hand inside the bag with the oven-mitt on. I'll let you know how it goes. Either it will work really nicely or I'll end up with some sort of third-degree burns. I'm hoping for the former.

Peeling back/trimming excess interfacing. This always seems to take about 3 times as long as I think it will, and due to the extreme shortness of my fingernails I tend to have a lot more difficulty than most.

Turning straps in the right way after sewing the seam. This is always just tedious.

The bobbin running out halfway through something and not noticing until you go to cut the thread that it ran out 20 stitches into whatever you were doing. This usually happens when you think you've done a particularly neat job with topstitching.

Attaching snaps. I had a bruise on my thumb for a couple of weeks from a unfortunate mishap with a hammer and snap-setter.

Zippers. I don't know why I dislike them so much. I know they're not that hard to do, in fact, I've done a few pretty sucessfully and they weren't all that painful to do. For some reason they always seem like a bit too much effort so I find myself avoiding them. I have to stop being lazy.

Sewing the gap closed in the lining. Sometimes it can take me weeks to do this part. Usually it's because I just can't be bothered because the bag looks so close to being finished that I can't wait to start using it and showing people so I just use it with a hole in the lining. Sometimes I tell myself that it's in case I notice a mistake and have to change something, but usually it's just laziness.

Most favourites:

Topstitching straps. I get some good speed going on the sewing machine and it makes me feel like some kind of sewing pro, plus there are no curves so it's easy.

Pressing on interfacing. I like that feeling of when your material goes from feeling kinda flimsy and floppy to something with a bit more substance.

Attaching magnetic snaps. I like this because I'm confident doing it (not that it's difficult), and I like opening and closing it about 20 times, like someone with OCD , after I've attached it because it gives a satisfying 'snap' sound.

Backstitching the lining to the facing. I don't really know why I like this bit, but I do.

Pulling the whole bag through the hole in the lining. I like to call this bit the 'birthing' for fairly obvious reasons. You think it's not going to fit, but then a bit of pushing and squeezing and it somehow makes it through and you end up marvelling at how it fitted through a hole that small. I also particularly like this part because it means that I'm almost finished and can run downstairs to get my 'oohs and aahs' from Ryan.

Showing people what I've made. Well that pretty much goes without saying, doesn't it.