One year anniversary - top ten lists

On February 27th we marked our one year anniversary here in Ecuador. At the time I was in the middle of a big translation job and wasn't able to update my blog. Translating documents from Spanish to English is a new thing that I've been getting involved in lately. So far I've been enjoying it; the work is fun and frustrating at the same time (I think that describes most of the things I do here in Loja). Anyway, in honor of being here for one year, I've put together these two "top ten" lists - "Things I Like About Living in Ecuador" and "Things I Miss about the USA," (not in order of importance):

Things I Like about Living in Ecuador
1. Living in another culture, with its daily challenges, rewards and frustrations.
2. Being around a big family, especially because there are lots of kids for Christina to play with.
3. Watching Christina become bi-lingual and bi-cultural.
4. Being involved in many different things (work, restaurant, etc.) instead of one job all day long. (I have to say that after a year I have never missed sitting in my cubicle at work. Not once.)
5. Having more time to spend with Christina.
6. Meeting people from all over the world who are living in or visiting Ecuador.
7. Being able to hire someone to clean the house and help make lunch every day.
8. Being able to go to a "real" local market with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables for sale.
9. Living in such a beautiful, mountainous part of the world.
10. Living in a small town where people are friendly and everyone knows everyone else.

Things I Miss about the USA
1. Spending time with family and friends from the US.
2. Living in a culture that I am familiar with.
3. Being able to buy anything that I could need or want, either at a local store or online, some things being much cheaper (such as clothes or electronics).
4. Breathing relatively clean air, that isn't full of smoke from car exhaust and dust from ubiquitous construction projects.
5. Living in a city with well-constructed and well-maintained public infrastructure (roads, sidewalks, public buildings, etc.).
6. Being able to accomplish day-to-day tasks (such as buying something in a store or conducting a transaction at the bank) quickly and efficiently.
7. Being able to drive in a relatively safe environment. Driving is easy and orderly. People stay in their lanes, stoplights work, signs are present and easy to read, and the roads aren't full of potholes. Drivers give pedestrians the right of way.
8. Being annonymous; not being stared at all the time.
9. Going out for a coffee at Peet's, a bagel at New York Bagel Boys, or out to eat at a good pizza joint, a good Mexican place, a microbrewery, etc.
10. Visiting all my favorite places like San Francisco, Humboldt County, Oregon, etc.