This morning, I awoke with a smile on my face…in six days, we’ll be heading to Las Vegas to our 107-day booked condo in lovely Lake Las Vegas. After this most recent disappointment, my expectations are in check, but being close to stores, restaurants, family, and friends certainly contributes to a positive state of mind.
If the condo isn’t perfect, so be it. Knowing we can enjoy ourselves otherwise, we’ll make the best of this. A good bed, strong WiFi, and reasonably comfortable living room furniture, coupled with the property being in good condition, is all we need to make it work.
With excellent reviews for the condo, we feel at ease knowing many tourists found it complete with many amenities and plenty of kitchen supplies. Often, like here in Ecuador, the kitchen supplies are limited. But, when many travelers only spend three or four days in a holiday home, eating out for most meals, they have little use for kitchen gadgets.
For instance, we’ve been functioning with only one medium-sized glass bowl. Instead, we’ve used various sizes of pots as bowls, and it worked fine. There is no can opener, so the tuna and coconut cream we purchased had pull-top tabs for opening. I have my own three little paring knives, which have helped with all the daily chopping and dicing I do, and they come in handy.
We’ve used one sizeable sharp knife to cut meat and large vegetables. The only bowls for serving coleslaw and other vegetables are small-sized side dish bowls that are a part of the basic set of dishes. There is no roasting pan or cookie sheet. But, we’ve used the four various-sized pots with stainless steel handles that can go into the oven for roasting meat and chicken.
There is one medium-sized square Pyrex pan that we’ve used on occasion, but it is hard to wash, and we couldn’t find parchment paper at the market. Instead, we purchased two rolls of tin foil, the best quality they had. But it was impossible to get any of it off the roll since it was so flimsy. We’ve managed without tin foil.
Over the years, we’ve learned to live without many kitchen utensils and gadgets. In our old lives, we had every kitchen gadget you can imagine. It’s been quite an adjustment adapting to using what’s available. If there’s no large bowl at the condo, I may buy one as I did in Florida. That’s the one item I miss the most. I make a mess trying to stir ingredients in the small bowl and pots.
The bed here is comfortable, and so is the living room furniture. We’ve never dined at the dining room table since we prefer to eat at the granite center island, with two barstools.
Since our HDMI cord broke and the one here is rusted from the humidity and doesn’t work, we’ve each entertained ourselves at night by reading the news and watching videos on our laptops. The nights have passed quickly, and with only a handful of nights to go, it hasn’t been as boring as I anticipated.
Every so often, we stop what we’re doing to chat while sitting across from one another. I usually go upstairs to bed about an hour before Tom, where I’ll finish watching a show on my phone, respond to our reader’s email messages that I hadn’t gotten to during the day, or play games on my phone.
Both of us are now relaxed and will soon begin thinking about packing. As mentioned, we could be packed in an hour or two if necessary. There’s no rush.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, December 8, 2013:
