another monday

On Saturday, Susan and I went walking around El Centro for a few hours. She took me to Carolina Bookstore, which sells books in English, and we stumbled upon a couple of craft stores and a neat little spice store where Susan found some things she wanted to make granola bars with. It was a wet and rainy morning, but it wasn't too bad. Saturday night was the first meeting of the gringo fan club for the local soccer team here in Cuenca. It had a pretty good turnout, and a lot of them stayed after to watch the Ecuador v. Argentina World Cup qualifying match (EC lost). I was working, since it was at Moca, and Melva showed me some of the things they make from the night menu. We need to combine the breakfast/lunch menu with the night menu so it won't be so confusing - it seems like we run two cafes in one, sometimes.

Sunday was the cleaning and cooking day. I had to make the artisan bread for our panini sandwiches at Moca, as well as boil the eggs for the egg salad and potato salad (Dad did the potatoes, and Nick made the potato salad). I also wanted to try to make some cupcakes, as something that could potentially be sold at Moca. I had never made cake from scratch before, and they came out alright, but I think I will try other recipes next time.Sunday turned out to be such a nice day, and we all spent it indoors!

Friday adventures

I tagged along with Trish, Marsha, and Kathleen to visit Artesa, today. It's a pottery/ceramics shop where they not only sell custom items along with the regular cups, bowls, vases, etc., but they also have a section that they call "seconds" which are the flawed and chipped items. I found some wide cappuccino mugs for Moca that match the smaller mugs we have, and assisted Marsha in finding a couple of nice, decorated, cups and saucers. We spent over an hour and a half there, I think, but it was very interesting to see all the different designs and colors of so many different items. To get to the "seconds" space, you walk through the working floor, where people were hand painting mugs and plates and vases and such. It was really neat to watch them work. Whenever it is that I get my own place, I will definitely get my mugs and plates and bowls from there.

A look back at the women working:

Mid-Week Photos

May is almost over, and we're on trend to do better at Moca Cafe Bar than we did last month. Been trying to think of ways to get more people to come check out the place: Special of the Day, designing a new flier, special events (like NBA games on Direct TV, and a big soccer match on Saturday. I want to try making cupcakes from scratch soon, to sell as a special. I've always made cakes from a box, so it should be an interesting experiment (will have to take photos as I go!). I've been snapping photos like a crazy person the past few days, so I definitely had a fair few to go through today. I've realized that since I post so many photos, the loading of my blog is quite slow, so I'm going to start using a jump link - I may go back through some old posts and add one, as well. Hopefully sprucing this place up some, sticking to a schedule, and promoting more, I will get a few more followers (maybe some comments?). Having a lot of followers isn't really my goal, but I'd like more people to see my photos, and though I know they aren't all amazing just yet, I'm working on getting better.

Life as seen through Instagram

In reverse order, here's my favorite Instagram snapshots from the past month.

The past week

Last week was a good week at Moca Cafe - we had some pretty busy days; the sun  made a few appearances, which was nice since most days we have gloom and rain; and I spent a couple of days dog-sitting for our friend Kathleen.

Catching up: Cinco de Mayo

My first bus trip out of town! Our friend Vickie invited us to a Cinco de Mayo party at her place in Paute, We took an hour long bus ride, with a few other friends, and spent a few hours there. I noticed some of my shots are blurred, I think my camera was stuck on the macro setting for some reason. After the party we walked through Paute to get to the bus station, and I snapped a bunch of photos while we were walking.

Catch up: end of April

I seem to be playing catch-up often on here. I've finally figured out a plan for this blog, with a tentative schedule that I hope to follow starting this week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays will be photo posts, where Tuesdays and Thursday I will post whatever I feel like. I like the idea of "Things I Like Thursday" (as seen on Kaelah's blog Little Chief Honeybee), so if I get enough things together, I may try that this week, too.

But for now, let me post the ton of photos I took the end of April. (in no particular order)