4,100 meters high. The view of Quito is amazing. You’d better go in the morning because around 1PM, the clouds inevitably come wrapping the mountain and you can hardly see fifty meters away.

There are a few recycling bins. How come they recycle here whereas they didn’t in our apartment building?

Down a path there is a tiny church called Capilla del Centenario. I was trying to have a glimpse at the chancel through the door window when the women next to me said: “Wouldn’t it be nice to get married here?”

Yes, it would. It is so quiet, the air is so fresh, you are so far away from everything else that you really feel on top of the world. Just as you should feel on your wedding day.

Quito over a roof

El Teleférico de Pichincha!

Foreigners and locals don't pay the same price

Quito

Amid clouds

La Capilla del Centenario above Quito (Centennial Chapel)

John Paul II's prayer

Church reflection

El camino

Recycling on top of a mountain

* * * * * * *
QUITO VU D’EN HAUT

Altitude: 4100 mètres. Vue sur Quito magnifique. Mieux vaut venir le matin parce que vers 13h, les nuages commencent inévitablement à envelopper les monts et on voit difficilement à 50 mètres.

Quelques poubelles de recyclage. Comment se fait-il qu’on recycle ici mais pas dans notre immeuble?

Au bout d’un chemin, une toute petite église appelée Capilla del Centenario. Je tente d’entrevoir le choeur de la chapelle à travers la porte vitrée quand deux femmes à côté de moi murmurent: “Ne serait-ce pas super de se marier ici?”

Oui, ce doit être super. C’est tellement calme, l’air est si vif, on se sent si loin de la civilisation qu’on a vraiment l’impression d’être sur le toit du monde. Tout comme on doit se sentir le jour de son mariage.

Wearing the ring and the shirt. Yesssssss.

Kevin started out with us in Seattle and worked, traveled and lived alongside us for over one year in almost a half dozen different countries.  It was in the last one of these, Korea, where he met his bride-to-be Katia.  Katia lived across the hall from us, is from Mexico, and is also totally awesome.  Katia quickly became a fixture in our lives and nights out and before long… MAGIC!

Magic – Korean style.

I don’t know a more down to earth and honest guy on this planet, or honestly a better couple.  I can say without doubt that Kevin and Katia are amazing together and I cannot imagine anything but an amazing future for them.

From everyone here, congratulations.  Here’s hoping we all find what you two have.

The price for getting to travel the world is steeper than you may wish to pay.  And it’s not just measured in dollars.

This episode was excruciatingly hard for us to put together.  It took everything I had emotionally to keep watching Rob’s confessions over and over again, and I’ve been dreading the impact it will have on him when he has to relive those experiences while watching the episode.  Never before have I been faced with real moral and emotional consequence in my line of work, and the process has been a bittersweet.

When I took on the job of primary editor/producer for JS0 it was a mostly carefree decision.  I was basically unattached to the world and had some money saved away so I could take whatever job I wanted at the time.  I chose to tell the story of 4 people having an adventure because it sounded like fun, but in the course of working with them over the past 6 months the experience has turned into something far more complex.  Not only are we all friends now (though I’ve never even met some of the team in person), but the story is getting more and more serious, and the act of retelling it is having a greater impact on my life.

This episode especially: I’m still recovering from a relationship that ended almost a year ago.  More accurately I’m not recovering from it, and hearing the numerous parallel’s with Rob’s situation has been stirring my demons.  The unique challenges of editing very painful material concerning a friend’s life, the events of which remind you horrifically of your own, has made the past two weeks completely surreal.

Wherever he is, I hope Rob is finding some closure right now: for both our sakes.

At any given time, I realized, neither the sun nor the moon could shine on me and her at the same time. Moreover, she was so far from me that she didn’t even look up at the same stars that I did. Where I saw the Northern Crown, she saw the Southern Cross. I was awake while she was sleeping.

Those three months tested our commitment, and eventually led to a year in which she was finishing college and I was starting grad school. We lived apart, but made it work, and half-way through, married.

Vietnam is only half a world away, and while 12 hours separate us,  we will both see the Big and Little Dipper in the sky at night. Thanks to the infrastructure we will require for production, our phone calls can be much more frequent and last longer than the time-delayed frustration of Madagascar. The wonders of this project will bring my every experience to her instantaneously.

But the filaments that connect viewers with our experiences cannot, no matter how thick, wholly bridge the distance that lies between. Phone calls can only connect my day to her night. Cold stars are small comfort for warm needs.