Monday 28 January 2013

Living the Life Ecuador Coast

What we brought to Ecuador

We brought all sorts of things to Ecuador. I brought my 3'' telescope, a lovely overstuffed armchair, which the dogs have claimed.
When we first came here and decided that this was the place we were going to live, we looked around and thought we had made a pretty good list of what to bring. One of the things that we brought were old photos. You have probably said the same thing, "When I have the time, I will scan all these photos into the computer and then we can share them with family and friends". ( like that's going to happen!!!).
A question we are asked is, "What do you do with your time?" Back in CA, we had a wii game system, which we brought to Ecuador. In CA, we played ten pin bowling , boxing, ski jumping, and so on; here, we have not even unpacked the system.
We have not been able to answer the question of, 'what do you do with your time?', except to say, what we do takes all day to do it, and we still do not have enough time to do that.
So, one of the things I did bring is a metal detector, because we live by the coast that has a beach. Things get lost in the sand and things get washed up on the beach.
I have found bottle caps, quarters, earrings, nails, and so on.
Here is what I found on this day with my metal detector; only I could not get it in my bag to take home.












The weather has been great here, but the waves have been stronger and the tide has been coming right up to the beach houses.
Take a look at this short video I took when on the beach one morning.








Accident on the Malecon

This accident was due to speed, as the Malecon is one-way. Motorists do tend to speed on this section because of the low number of pedestrians. This accident caused power to be lost to this area, as this is a major transformer.
















This month

January 28, 1547 - King Henry VIII of England died and was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Henry had ruled since 1509 and had broken all ties with the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of divorce. He married a total of six times. Edward VI was the son of his third wife, Jane Seymour. Edward became king at age 10, but died of tuberculosis at age 16. He was followed by his half-sister, Mary.
January 28, 1871 - The Franco-Prussian War ended as Paris surrendered to the Germans after a four month siege. Peace terms imposed on the French included yielding the greater part of Alsace and Lorraine to the Germans and a $1 billion fine. German troops also outraged the French by marching triumphantly through the streets of Paris causing enmity between the two nations which lasted for decades.
January 28, 1915 - The U.S. Coast Guard was created by an Act of Congress, combining the Life Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service.
January 28, 1935 - Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion.
January 28, 1963 - African American student Harvey Gantt entered Clemson College in South Carolina, the last state to hold out against integration.
January 28, 1986 - The U.S. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds into its flight, killing seven persons, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who was to be the first ordinary citizen in space.
Birthday - Explorer Henry Stanley (1841-1904) was born in Wales. As a newspaper correspondent for the New York Herald, he was given the challenging assignment of finding missionary-explorer David Livingston in Africa. Upon locating Livingston near Lake Tanganyika in 1871 after an exhausting search, Stanley simply asked, "Dr. Livingston, I presume?"
January 29
January 29, 1891 - Hawaii proclaimed Liliuokalani as its queen. Renowned for her song Aloha Oe,she had a reign of only four years until she was forced to abdicate in 1895 under pressure from powerful businessmen.
January 29, 1916 - During World War I, the first aerial bombings of Paris by German zeppelins took place.
January 29, 1919 - The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Prohibition Amendment) was ratified. For nearly 14 years, until December 5, 1933, the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages were illegal in the United States. The Amendment had the unexpected result of causing enormous growth of organized crime which provided bootleg liquor to thirsty Americans.
Birthday - Common Sense author Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was born in Thetford, England. His pamphlet, published in 1776, provided inspiration to undecided Americans that a new nation, independent from Britain, might eventually become "...an asylum for mankind!" He served in the Continental Army and observed the hardships of American troops fighting the world's most powerful army. He then published The Crisis series pamphlets which began by stating, "These are the times that try men's souls." He refused to accept the profits from his writings and wound up destitute after the Revolution.
Birthday - William McKinley (1843-1901) the 25th U.S. President was born in Niles, Ohio. He was elected in 1896 and re-elected in 1900. Early in his second term, on September 6, 1901, he was shot and mortally wounded by an anarchist at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, and died eight days later.
Birthday - Russian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, Russia. His works included Uncle VanyaThree Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.
January 30
January 30, 1649 - King Charles I of England was beheaded for treason by order of Parliament under the direction of Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Puritan Revolution.
January 30, 1835 - President Andrew Jackson survived the first assassination attempt on a U.S. President. While leaving the House of Representatives Chamber, an insane would-be assassin fired two pistol shots at him, however both pistols misfired and the president was unharmed.
January 30, 1933 - Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler went on to become the sole leader of Nazi Germany. He then waged a war of expansion in Europe, precipitating the deaths of an estimated 50 million persons through military conflict and through the Holocaust in which the Nazis attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe.
January 30, 1948 - Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi, India, by a religious fanatic. Gandhi had ended British rule in India through nonviolent resistance. "Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our very being," he had stated in 1926.
January 30, 1968 - Beginning of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam as North Vietnamese troops attacked 36 provincial capitals and 5 major cities in South Vietnam, including an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and the presidential palace. Although U.S. forces eventually fended off the massive surprise attack and achieved a military victory, Tet became a propaganda victory for the Vietnamese due in part to graphic news reports on television which helped turn U.S. public opinion against continuation of the war.
January 30, 1972 - In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 Roman Catholics were killed by British troops during a banned civil rights march. The event became known as Bloody Sunday.
January 30, 1973 - During the Watergate scandal, Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted of burglary, wire-tapping and attempted bugging of the Democratic headquarters inside the Watergate building in Washington, D.C.
January 30, 1992 - Argentina allowed access to numerous files of Nazis who had fled to South America from Germany after World War II, thus aiding the hunt for Nazi war criminals.
Birthday - Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) the 32nd U.S. President was born in Hyde Park, New York. Despite crippling polio, he led America out of the Great Depression and through World War II and is widely considered to be one of America's three greatest presidents (along with Washington and Lincoln). "When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries is in danger," he stated in 1939.
January 31
January 31, 1943 - German troops surrendered at Stalingrad, marking the first big defeat of Hitler's armies in World War II. During the Battle of Stalingrad, 160,000 Germans were killed and 90,000 taken prisoner, including the commander, Friedrich von Paulus, the first German field marshal ever to surrender. The captured Germans were forced to march to Siberia, with few ever returning to Germany.
January 31, 1945 - Eddie Slovik, a 24-year-old U.S. Army private, was executed by a firing squad after being sentenced to death for desertion, the first such occurrence in the U.S. Army since the Civil War.
Birthday - Jackie Robinson (1919-1972) was born in Cairo, Georgia. He was the first African American to play professional baseball. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1947 to 1956, was chosen as the National League's most valuable player in 1949 and elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.



    

No comments:

Post a Comment