Quick Update!

Sorry I haven't blogged in like a week! Last Friday I forgot, then I went on the weekend trip, and then I got sick! YUCK! It was really gross, you don't want to know the details. But Monday-Wednesday, besides doing my normal things, I basically just slept all day so I didn't have time to update this. And I've officially decided, I never ever want to travel alone again!! I was having an amazing time before I got sick, and I'm having an amazing time again, but it was just so completely awful being sick and alone that it is just not worth it. :/ And I was really only sick for one day! Anyway, I started a blog about the weekend but never got a chance to finish. :( I'll try to eventually! But guess what?! Tomorrow, I'm going on another weekend trip! Woo! This one's crazy. Here I'll post the itinerary:


Tikal, Río Dulce & Livingston
First day (Friday)
4:40 AM - Start to collect everyone from their houses
5:00 AM - Leave Antigua
8:00 AM - Breakfast
9:00 AM - Continue driving
11:30 AM - Arrive at Fronteras, Río Dulce. Visit San Felipe Castle, Izabal Lake; time to swim. Picnic lunch.
2:00 PM - Continue driving
5:30 PM - Arrive at Flores. Location for hotel. Free time, including dinner.
Second day (Saturday)
5:00 AM - Leave hotel for the park
7:00 AM - Breakfast in the Tikal ruins
7:40 AM - Tour of the Tikal archaeological site with English guide
11:00 AM - End of tour, leave the park.
Option to go ziplining: $30. In this place there is a restaurant where we will eat lunch.
1:30 PM - Leave for Fronteras, Río Dulce
5:30 PM - Arrive at Frontera Río Dulce
6:30 PM - Arrive at Lívingston and transfer in pickup to the hotel on a beach 5 km outside of town
7:00 PM - Arrive at hotel
7:30 PM - Dinner
Third day (Sunday)
8:00 AM - Breakfast. Time for the beach
10:00 AM - Leave hotel, go through Lívingston. Tour of Río Dulce
1:30 PM - Arrive at Frontera. Lunch
3:00 PM - Leave for Antigua. You can have dinner in a restaurant on the way or in the capital.
9:00 PM - Arrive at Antigua.

Lotsa traveling!! I haven't decided if I'm gonna try ziplining yet. :) $30 is like really cheap though, right?! How can I pass that up??

OK now I'm going to answer some questions my mom sent to me in an email:

It looks like avocados are very common in the dishes Guatemalans prepare - you must like that!
I also noticed something like a fruit salad with watermelon, bananas and (is that pineapple?)
Are avocados, watermelon, tomatoes, lime and corn among the most common fruits and vegetables grown in the area?  What else is common there?
Are the drinks mostly fruit drinks, like aqua frescas?
It's really great that you got to practice talking in Spanish while comparing the differences in the educational systems of Guatemala and the United States.  Maybe you can learn more about the culture and values of the people there also.  It's so neat that you're learning much more than just the Spanish language, even though that's happening, too.
What a funny story about your bus trip...what's usually a 20-30 minute walk is just a 5-7 minute bus ride, right?  At least now you know where to get off if you decide to take the bus again.
Oh, just to double check...you're one hour ahead of us, right?  

YES avocado is like my FAVORITE and they have it in practically every meal so I LOOVE it! <3 In the morning we usually have a fruit salad with some combination of watermelon, banana, pineapple, cantaloupe, and persimmon and we put yogurt and granola on it. I can't eat the granola though cause it has peanuts in it. :/ I know avocados & watermelon (2 of my favorite foods ever!) are really common here, and I think tomatoes, limes, and corn are too but I'm not sure. Oh I also absolutely love that they make everything with cilantro! Woo! For breakfast we have tea or coffee (I always have tea), lunch is a fruit drink (kinda like agua fresca I guess) and for dinner we just have water. About my Spanish classes...it's so cool because we always start with a little conversation about something random! Her family, my family, differences between Guatemala and the United States, food, how they celebrate holidays here, etc. etc. and it's so great! :) I get to practice my Spanish and learn a lot about the culture here too! About the bus...the past couple days while I've been sick, I've been taking the bus or a tuc-tuc (like a mini taxi) everywhere because I've been really tired. And yeah, it makes the trip a LOT shorter. Pretty much turns a 30-minute walk into 5-10 minute ride. And it's cheap! Did I mention the cost already? About 20 cents for the bus and $1.50 for a private tuc-tuc ride. Timewise - I am in the same region as the Central Time Zone, but since Guatemala doesn't have Daylight Saving Time I'm just 1 hour ahead of San Francisco time.

I've got to go to dinner now, and after that I'm gonna pack for the trip and try to follow the Giants game on Twitter lol. I need to sleep early cause we're leaving so early so I'm gonna try to go to sleep right when the game ends haha! But if I finish getting all my stuff ready for the trip before the game ends I'll try to write more in the blog!

BTW even if I don't get a chance to update my blog, I'm still gonna try to keep my pictures updated just so ya know. Enjoy!

Día Feriado

Today is El Día del Ejército, a national holiday, so I didn't have my volunteer project and not a lot of interesting stuff happened. The weather was nice again this morning! The Spanish lesson was great as usual. I asked lots of questions, got lots of answers, improved my use of imperfect/preterit even more, and learned a little more about conditional/future tense stuff... After lunch I did my laundry. The laundromat is so expensive, it cost me Q50 (like $6.50) to do one load of laundry! Boo!! But whatever. I signed up for a weekend trip to Lake Atitlan/Chichicastenango with a group from the language school! Lake Atitlan is supposedly "the most beautiful place in the world" (at least SOMEONE said that lol) and you can hike, kayak, or do cliff jumping there. Hmm don't think I'll be cliff jumping though. Chichicastenango is "one of the biggest markets in Latin America" so that should be fun! :) hmm I guess I should probably buy souvenirs then. OK I didn't really do anything else today, cause the laundry took me like 3 hours total (to get all my clothes together, walk to the laundromat, etc. etc.) and I have homework. And besides that I've just been on the computer lol. It's hard to go out and explore the city when it rains so much. :/ I really don't like going out in the rain. Yup I think that's about it for today! Wow short blog!

If you have any questions about my trip or anything I've talked about feel free to ask...I don't really know what else to add lol

INTERNET!!

I'm in an English mood right now. I'm tired. And I don't feel like blogging, but I know if I don't I'll regret it. Two of the volunteers at my project are from the United States and keep speaking in English to each other and to me as we walk to the project, which is like 20-30 minutes!! :/ I hate it. I came here to speak Spanish. But what can I do? Oh well.

Yay, the internet came back in my homestay!!! WOOOOO!! Now I don't have to go out at night to the internet cafe! :) And I can leave my laptop on so it can upload my pictures and videos. Right now I'm uploading videos of the kids hitting the piñata yesterday, omg they were SO CUTE!! But the internet is slower here, I can't watch MLB.TV like I did in the internet cafe haha. I can't even listen on Gameday Radio. :/ But I can follow on Gameday, which is waayy better than before! Shoot, 2 years ago when I was in Peru I got info on the Giants like 5 times total the whole time I was there, when one of the people there checked the Giants score on his phone. Last year I got text updates from Rachel and my dad & mom (<3 they're the best!) and a little from the internet when I went. Now I can go online EVERY DAY and I get free Twitter updates on my phone in realtime, watch in the sportsbar, watch on my own tv in my room if they're on ESPN and everything! WOOO!! And the other nice thing is like the past 2 years I took TONS OF PICTURES and didn't go through them ever, and I still haven't uploaded any :/ cause by the time my trip was over I had 2000+ pictures and completely did NOT (and still don't) feel like going through every single one and deleting the bad ones lol. But now I can go through them day by day and upload all of them! Yay!

OK today the Spanish lesson was cool, we spent the first 2 hours just talking. Carolina (my tutor) told me all about the Guatemala education system (which I might explain later, but knowing me I'll never get to it, so if you see me in person after you can ask me about it). And I talked about ours. We talked about a lot of differences between Guatemala and the United States and there's like fewer opportunities here and stuff, it was interesting and sad. And there you have more things to pray about - in a nutshell, if you don't have money you can't get an education past middle school, and you can't really take out a loan here. OK after that conversation, I had another list of questions for her. (I don't remember if I mentioned this yesterday, but I came to her with a bunch of questions yesterday, and it was so cool cause I could just ask her WHATEVER I wanted about little things about Spanish I didn't understand, or that needed clarification, and she answered them all!!) It's so cool because like in any group learning setting, you can't just ask a million questions about every single little thing you don't get. So like even though I've learned a lot of Spanish, there's a ton of little things I've never quite understood, but they haven't really been that big of a deal so I haven't worried about it. But now that it's just me, I get to get ALL of that cleared up! Woo! It's really really cool!! After all my questions, that took like another hour haha and then we did some preterite/imperfect exercises.

So apparently Byron and Luis come for lunch every day. Which is cool! Cause we get to talk to them in Spanish! Woo! They work for Bantrab, which is a bank. They're co-workers of Ana Maria, a girl who lives in our homestay. Luis is really funny, and we've decided that since I take a picture of all my food every meal, I'm going to take a picture of him with the food every day at lunch. So if you're wondering why there's so many pictures of Luis in my food album, that's why. :) My mom emailed me asking for pictures of the kids at the project and the homestay. I'll try!! I've got pictures and videos of the kids that are uploading now. I'll get pictures of the people at the homestay tomorrow! And I'll definitely get a picture of the outside of the buildings and stuff. I'll take more video of me walking too, I guess. Then you can see what it's like for me to walk to class every day! And other places! Yay!

I'm just gonna say again, seriously, this is the best food I've ever eaten in my life. Every meal. I can't believe it!! It's so wonderful!! I don't know if I'm like the luckiest girl in the world or if it's just my disposition to be satisfied with everything, but man, I love this trip SO MUCH. Everything is just PERFECT! I mean, sure, the rain sucks, but whatever. Everything else is just so wonderful! All the people, the Spanish classes, the FOOOOOD, the city is so quaint and cute, walking is great, oh the kids in the volunteer project!! Just everything! Oh and when it's not raining, it's so gorgeous out!

OK I'm like getting all excited telling about my day now I'm not that tired anymore! Anyway, at the project, I met 3 boys, Samuel, Jonathan, and José. (I forgot to ask how old they were!) I had taken a picture of them yesterday, because they were in the area next to where I was, and both the girls I was helping left to get stuff. And when they saw me today they were like "OTRA FOTO! OTRA FOTO!" ("ANOTHER PHOTO! ANOTHER PHOTO!") so I took more pictures of them and then ended up just sitting down with them and helping them with their work. At the end, Martha, the director of the program, decided to split the kids up into groups and assign them to "teachers" (Maya, Esther - the other volunteer that's Maya's friend from Brown, and me). I got Petrona, Kimberly, Angel, and Samuel, the first-graders. I think it's a good idea because before, the kids would around and bother Jorge (he seems like he's the head teacher guy that has all the materials) and wow, Jorge seemed like he never got any rest cause all the kids were asking him for stuff the WHOLE TIME. But now, it's supposed to be like I'm in charge of these 4 kids, and we have our own little table, and if any of them have a question they can ask me. And if they need some materials, then I'LL ask Jorge. So then it won't be so crazy. It ensures that each kid is taken care of, and also that Jorge isn't so swamped with stuff. So we'll see how that works out.

Usually the program ends at 5 but we ended at 4 today I think because it started raining really hard, or cause they didn't have a special activity planned afterward like they usually do? I'm not really sure. But oh earlier in the day it was just GORGEOUS! In the morning it was perfect, blue skies with pretty clouds, not too hot. But when we were walking to the project, wow it was so hot!! Eew! And then the storm clouds came and there was a bunch of thunder, and it got a lot colder. And then it started raining a little and gradually started pouring! But right when we left it stopped! So weird! But good for us! But Maya and Esther didn't bring a poncho or anything so they didn't want to walk back in case it started raining, so we decided to take a bus. It was really funny because we didn't know where the bus was going exactly, so I got on the bus (oh I have to take pictures, they're pretty! They're like school buses that are painted colorfully and I think they go from Guatemala City to Antigua and back) and I was standing in the aisle looking at my map trying to figure out which street we were on and which street I could get off at close to my house. And I always see these colorful buses driving past my house (and I have to wait for them to pass so I can cross) so I knew it would stop at that intersection but I had to figure out where. I felt really stupid cause I was wearing a poncho even though it had stopped raining and I was like holding this map trying not to fall over...it was funny. Some people were laughing at me. Oh and then I kinda sorta figured out where we were headed so I put my map away. Maya and Esther wanted to go to Parque Central so they got off a couple stops ahead of me. I was just standing there waiting to get closer to my stop and I looked out the window to see where I was and realized I was at the intersection of my house! I yelled "OH!!" and ran to the front of the bus and got off, and the whole bus laughed at me. Good times. LOL! Oh and it only cost Q4.50 for the 3 of us to ride, that's like less than 60 cents!! Woooo!

OK I think I'm done now. Feel free to ask me any questions about anything you don't get, especially in the last 2 entries that had lots of Spanish in it. :) Or any questions about anything else you'd like to know. And I'll take photo requests too!

Trabajo Voluntario! :D

OK I added 2 translators at the top of my page for your convenience. The top one can translate a large chunk of text but I think the Google Translate one translates better....but it can only take 300 characters at a time. I'll try to add accents to make it more clear. (It's actually not that hard!) And I'll make sure to have line breaks between Spanish and English so you can easily copy/paste the Spanish into the translator. Hopefully that works better! Let me know!

No sé si ya he mencionado este... pero el tiempo ha sido muy mal!! Sí, es la temporada de lluvia, pero normalmente solo llueve por las tardes. Ha llovido casi TODO el tiempo todos los días desde que llegué! Y no he visto el sol ni el cielo! Pero esta mañana, podía ver el sol y el cielo azul!! Las calles estaban secas, y no sentí que yo iría a caerme! Una cosa poquita, pero me alegró mucho. :) La temporada también era más alta, pero a la misma vez no tan alta! Era un día perfecto! :D

Mi lección de español hoy estaba tan ayudable. Estoy tan emocionante porque creo que ya estoy aprendiendo mucho!! Tuve muchas preguntas para mi tutora al inico de la lección, y ella me contestó todas con respuestas muy ayudables. Es tan diferente que una clase de español de la secundaria, o aún de la universidad cuando solo hay 6 estudiantes en la clase. Con una tutora privada, puedo preguntar cualquiera cosa que quiero saber, y podemos pasar todo el tiempo que necesito para entender la cuestión. Ya siento más cómoda con el uso del pretérito y del imperfecto, porque ella lo revisó conmigo y podía pausar y pensar por todo el tiempo que necesitaba. También repasamos la diference entre ¿qué? y ¿cuál? y los usos de lo/el/la cual, lo/el/la que, etc. Yo no entendía qué era un "antecedente" y ella necesitó explicarlo por mucho tiempo, pero finalmente entendí, y ahora entiendo por qué uso lo/el/la cual, lo/el/la que, etc. He aprendido esta idea en la secundaria y la universidad un poquito, pero nunca pasabamos mucho tiempo en estas ideas, y yo nunca sentía cómoda con usarla. Pues, algo interesante que aprendí hoy es que aquí, se usa el pronombre "yo" siempre. He observado que toda la gente usa el pronombre "yo" con todas sus frases, pero pensé que la razón era para tener mas claridad para personas quien todavía estaban aprendiendo el español. En la universidad, cuando yo usaba "yo" cuando era obvio y redundante, mis profesores siempre me dijeron que era redundante y que debo omitirlo. Pero le pregunté a mi tutora hoy, y me dijo que es más correcto incluirlo! Estaba de acuerdo que no es necesario, pero no entendió por qué a mis profesores no les gustaban mi uso de "yo". Supongo que solo es una diferencia en un costumbre de Guatemala, porque el español de todos los países latinoamericanos es diferente.

Una historia breve, chistosa y característica de mí: durante la pausa de mi lección de hoy, fui a "La Bodegona" (luego necesito hablar de esta tienda más, porque a mí me gusta!! Es casi como Walmart!!) Pues, compré un hermético (como tupperware) para guardar mi comida contra las cucarachas, por el consejo de mi madre :) Pagué, y cuando puse mi cambio en mi cartera, me olvidé del hermético!! -_- Regresé al restaurante (dónde tengo mis lecciones de español) y me dio cuenta que no tuve mi hermético! Las personas muy amables de "La Bodegona" guardaron mi hermético, y cuando regresé, me dieron. :)

Oh otro apunte pequeño pero importante: he descubrido que mi comida favorita, definitivamente, es la comida latina. En El Paso, Perú, y aquí, he tenido la mejor comida de mi vida! No puedo creer cuánto me encanta la comida que Telma cocina!

OK fui a mi trabajo voluntario, que está en el sur-este de Antigua. No es en el mapa de Antigua porque está un poquito afuera, pero solo me toma como 30 minutos para caminar de mi casa al proyecto. Estoy tan feliz que puedo caminar tanto, porque yo como tanto y yo no hago otro tipo de ejercicio! :P Hoy, conocé a Kimberly y Petrona, quien tienen 7 años. Les ayudé con sus tareas de escribir números y dibujar animales. Estaba tan divertido! :) También conocé a otra niña, Katharín, quien tuvo su 8o cumpleaños ayer! Y Maria, quien tiene 5 años. ELLA ES LA MAS LINDA QUE TODOS LOS NIÑOS! <3 Después de una hora, unos americanos vinieron con 2 piñatas! Hablé con una de las personas, quien no hablaba mucho español. Ella me dijo que su familia viene de la Area Bahía también, y está en un viaje de servicio para la familia. Durante la mañana y el día, ellos ayudan a hacer casas. Y por la tarde, tienen diferentes actividades de servicio. Una actividad es venir a este programa y dejar que los niños se divierten. Jugamos el "hoky poky", los niños cantaron una canción sobre elefantes, y golpearon las piñatas! Tengo muchas fotos y unos videos de estas actividades, pero me olvidé de subir mis fotos de hoy! Lo siento! Y ayer me olvidé de subir las de ayer, pero las subiré hoy. Voy a subir las de hoy mañana, y se puede ver los niños tan chistosos y lindos. :) Se necesita ver el video de Maria cuando golpea la piñata, es tan chistoso! Me fui de la escuela con Maya, una estudiante de Massachusetts quien asiste a Brown University. Al principio, me habló en español, pero le pregunté a ella a hablar en español y estaba bien. :)

Compré "crocs" zapatos aranajados (tengo una foto que voy a subir luego) de La Bodegona porque mi madre me aconsejó que debo comprar zapatos mejores para que no me caiga en las calles guijarras. Y están perfectos! :D

OK necesito irme para que pueda dormir! Buenas noches!

Español!

OK, let’s try something. So I’m actually starting to think in Spanish a little bit, which is really cool! But it makes it harder to do this blog. Sometimes I actually have to translate my thoughts back to English!! And that’s not good cause it takes longer to think and I’m sure that’s not helpful in trying to get better at Spanish. But obviously I’m still not fluent in Spanish so I can’t just write this blog in Spanish. And I don’t want to spend forever on this blog so I’m not going to think that hard if I don’t know it. So I think what I’ll do is if the thought comes out in Spanish, I’ll type it in Spanish. And if it comes out in English, I’ll type it in English! And if you don’t understand Spanish, you can try using Google Translate. The only problem is my grammar/vocabulary still isn’t that great and I’m not necessarily going to take the time to write out accents so you might not get a correct translation on an online translation website. In that case, maybe you can get a friend that speaks Spanish to tell you what it says haha. :) I don’t know, we’ll see how this goes. One thing I’m definitely going to try to do is not switch languages in the middle of a sentence though. It’ll probably be interesting to see how I use more and more Spanish as this trip goes along!

Esta manana me desperte a las 6:30, me duche, y come el desayuno a las 7. Me sorprendio a ver 3 otros estudiantes en la mesa! Pague extra para vivir en una casa sin otros estudiantes! Pero esta bien. Los otros estudiantes son: Karin (Karyn? No se…) quien es de Canada, y tiene 38 anos. David es de Alemania, tiene 24 anos. Nina tambien es de Alemania y tiene 25 anos. Me gusta mucho el acento de los alemanes cuando hablan espanol, es muy interesante! A veces Nina y David se hablan juntos en aleman, pero no me importa con tal que nadie me habla en ingles! :) Karyn asiste a la misma escuela que yo, Tecun Uman. Solo esta aqui para aprender espanol, y creo que le va este domingo. David tambien solo esta aqui para aprender espanol, pero en otra escuela. El esta aqui por 3 meses creo. Nina esta aqui para ensenar en una escuela para ninos, no para aprender el espanol, y tambien esta aqui por mucho tiempo pero no recuerdo exactamente cuanto tiempo.

Hable con mi tutor de espanol, Carolina, por casi 2 horas en conversacion normal sobre mi familia, su familia, que hago en los Estados Unidos, etc. Despues, me describio el plan para las proximas semanas. Tomamos una pausa por 20 minutos y despues continuabamos la leccion hasta las 12. Carolina me dijo que normalmente la pausa dura 30 minutos. La escuela ofrece actividades cada tarde, pero no puedo participar en estas mucho del tiempo porque tengo mi trabajo de voluntario cada tarde a las 14 creo. Today they were going to have a walking tour of the city. (My first sentence in English, whoa! I’m not good at those types of sentences with “they were going to” and stuff.) Pero empezo a llover MUCHO a las 11, y cancelaron el tour. And the director of my volunteer project said the kids probably wouldn’t be there anyway because of the rain. Por eso, tenia una tarde libre! I bought tissues and toilet paper at the supermarket, and walked back to my homestay. I was wearing shorts but put on my citenge (from Zambia) cause my legs were cold and I had a poncho on but it didn’t cover from like my knees down so the bottom of the citenge got soaked. And I was wearing flip flops cause then when my feet get soaked it’s not that bad. The roads are made of cobblestone here, and the sidewalks are normally paved but to cross the street I have to walk on cobblestone. And the cars don’t really stop for pedestrians. So it’s hard to walk around in the rain cause wet cobblestones and flip flops are not a good combination, and add my clumsiness and the fact that I kind of have to hurry cause it’s kind of like the game Frogger, and I just know I’m going to slip and fall someday soon. -_- I got to my homestay just in time for lunch! LA COMIDA DE MI CASA ES MUY RICA!! ME ENCANTA! :D Dos amigos, Luis y Byron, de alguien (no se quien) estaban alli para el almuerzo tambien. Mientras comiamos, Telma (la madre de mi casa) nos dijo que alguien en la cuidad Guatemala (que es muy violenta y peligrosa) fue secuestrado y matado esta manana. Dijo que el joven solo tenia 30 anos y fue el hijo de alguien que trabaja para la estacion de radio “Sonora”. Byron dijo, “mi tio trabaja para Sonora y mi primo tiene 30 anos!” y llamo a unos parientes para saber si fue su primo que estaba matado…y fue su primo. Byron seemed a little shaken but not so shocked. He seemed more surprised that he wasn’t notified earlier. It was really sobering for me to be there when he got the news. And it was really weird. But apparently that stuff happens in Guatemala City all the time. Just you don’t all get worried, Antigua is really safe, but Guatemala City is dangerous and there are kidnappings all the time. During dinner, Telma told the rest of the students what had happened at lunch and she told a story about someone she knew who was kidnapped and blindfolded and gagged, and the friend overheard the kidnappers saying on the phone, “hold I’m I’m busy, I’m working.” Like kidnapping is an actual job in Guatemala City. They kidnap people and hold them for ransom, and if they take too long to pay up they kill them because they’re taking up space where another victim can be. It’s horrible. And the government doesn’t do anything about it because it’s so corrupt. So for any of you who want to know how you can be praying for me and for Guatemala, there’s definitely an issue.

Despues del almuerzo, porque no queria estar mojada otra vez, y porque tenia sueno, tuve una siesta de 3 horas. Me despierte para la cena, y despues fui al café de internet. Y creo que es todo! Oh I forgot, there’s this really cute baby, Angel, who lives in my house! He’s 2 years old. :D yay! Oh and one more thing. If you’re on Twitter, you can send me replies and direct messages and I’ll get them on my phone for free! I have to pay about 7 cents per text I send, so I probably won’t respond to you right away, but I’ll reply when I get online or something. Yay!

Select photos from my trip - https://picasaweb.google.com/sfgiantsgirlpics/AntiguaGuatemala
Separate album for food :) - https://picasaweb.google.com/sfgiantsgirlpics/ComidaDeAntigua

Day 2?

Hmm so I'm not that great at coming up with titles. Oh well.

Yesterday after leaving the cafe, I walked around Parque Central and saw a photo exhibition or something on water and like something about how there's all these problems with water that are caused by humans not protecting the environment and stuff like that. There was a thing on Hurricane Katrina and how it wasn't the hurricane was what caused all the problems, but the government's negligence. And there were other displays on other things around the world. It was interesting.

I tried to go to a sports bar next door to my hotel to watch the Giants/Indians game but they didn't have it for some reason! The only FOX games they had were Dodgers/Angels and Rockies Yankees I think. :/ The Giants game was on FOX though, right?? Then I got a prepaid Guatemala phone (where I can receive calls and texts for free!) and bought shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc. (cause I only came with a carry-on so I couldn't bring any of that with the liquid restrictions). I tried to go back to the sports bar later to watch Cubs/Royals but everyone was watching the Gold Cup game haha.

And it was raining so I didn't really want to be outside, so I just went back to my hotel and watched tv for a little then went to sleep.

Today when I left my hotel this morning, I saw some people eating breakfast on the patio right outside. I asked the guy at the stand if I could have some breakfast and he told me a continental breakfast comes with my hotel stay, I just had to get a ticket! I wish I'd known that yesterday. :/ When I went to the hotel counter to get my ticket I did see a sign that says "continental breakfast" though. Oh well. Anyway, some Guatemalan coffee came with it which is apparently famous or something? I thought Colombia was known for its coffee. Then I walked to a church that was advertised in this tourist magazine they had at my hotel. On the way I could hear so many birds chirping, it was so cool!

I got a little lost and had to ask like 10 people for directions to the church but I got there eventually at 9:15, 15 minutes after it started. It's apparently one of the few "Christian" churches in Antigua - all the other churches are Catholic (which I guess they consider completely different from Christian?). The service was in Spanish and they had radios with simultaneous English translation. I used the translation for a little bit but I was trying to listen to the Spanish at the same time, and ended up just getting confused. So I just listened in Spanish and understood most of it! :D It was a really interesting service, the sermon was a video. And it was like part of a series called "Cafe Lafe" which was like about coffee. They were like comparing coffee to a Christian life. Like how coffee smells, and Christians should have a strong, distinct "smell" of being a Christian. During the songs, someone walked down the aisle with a tissue box and passed out tissue to people who were crying. I thought it was funny, but also a pretty good idea... After the service I asked where I could find a bible in Spanish and they said they don't know of any Christian bookstores in Antigua, but next week they'll bring one or two with simple translations that I can buy from them. Yay!

I went back to the hotel and packed, then got taken to my homestay.
My room:

Apparently the mom of the house is on a trip and won't be back til tonight (or tomorrow morning?) and one of the girls who lives there who knows the password to the wifi is out and won't be back til the afternoon. And it's raining pretty hard so I don't feel like being outside, so I'm at Bagel Barn again eating a yummy bagel sandwich, smoothie, and using their free wifi.

At 6 I'm gonna try to go back to that sports bar and watch the Giants game. They should have the game on cause it's on ESPN! I just hope there's no soccer game...

Now I'm just gonna type some random stuff since I don't really have anything better to do.

Apparently there are two seasons in Guatemala: dry season and rainy season. It's rainy season now. Pretty much thunderstorms every afternoon/night. Supposedly it's super hot and humid in the morning when the sun comes out, but I haven't really seen the sun yet, just clouds. The temperature is nice though, not too hot and not too cold. I'm comfortable with a skirt.

There are a TON of tourists here! From all over the world. So a bunch of locals speak English. But they also talk to you in Spanish if you want them to. And apparently this is a popular place for people to learn Spanish, so they understand that I'm still learning Spanish and are patient with me. It's pretty cool! :D

............

WOW I was JUST about to publish this post when the internet went down because of the thunderstorm! I was going to post this like 10 hours ago! A little bit more has happened since then...once the internet went out I went back to my room, turned on the TV, and A Bug's Life was on in Spanish!! One of my favorites!! :D It was so cool to watch it in Spanish. No subtitles though :/ but I've watched it so many times I didn't need them anyway! :P Then I watched Beisbol Esta Noche on ESPN Vivo and the beginning of the Giants game! The internet was still down (I think my homestay mom, Telma, said something like they were fixing the internet tower because of the storm?) It was so fun to watch the game in Spanish! The announcers were so much better than the English ESPN guys LOL! And they highlighted Andres Torres a lot cause he's Latino woooo! ;) Around the 6th inning I walked 8 blocks back to the sports bar that was next to my hotel and watched the rest of the game on regular ESPN but without the sound. Three Korean students sat next to me at the bar after I had been there for just an inning or 2, and one of the guys said something in Korean to me. I was like "uhh....sorry..." and then he said "de donde eres?" (where are you from?) and we ended up talking the rest of the time in Spanish! omg it was so cool! He and his 2 friends are studying Spanish for a lot longer time than me. He's here for a year! Then I got to see the Giants beat the Indians, wooo!! SWEEP SWEEP SWEEP! :D And now I'm at an Internet cafe that's right next door to the bar and charges 8 Quetzales/hour (about $1/hour, not bad right?) and I'm gonna go home and go to sleep soon.

What I know about tomorrow so far:
0630 wake up & get ready for the day
0700 breakfast
0750 language school!
-- 15-minute conversation with my private Spanish tutor to assess my Spanish level
-- 4 1-hour sessions? (I'm not quite sure what that means? I get breaks in between?)
1300 lunch
1400 walking tour of antigua with tecun uman (language school) OR start volunteer project
1900 dinner

OK now feel free to add comments and whatever! :)

Introduction

Edit: Whoops! Didn't realize I had comments disabled for this entry at first! You can now add comments if you want! :)
I also forgot to include links to the specific programs I'm doing in Antigua. Volunteer project Spanish-language program

Hi everyone! :D For those of you who don't already know, I'm in Antigua, Guatemala for a volunteering project and to improve my Spanish. It's through HumaniTravels, which I heard about when Alex (the co-director) was sitting at a table in the USF Market Cafe and asked me if I was interested in any volunteering abroad opportunities. The program sounded really cool, and now here I am!

I just got into Antigua last night, at around 10:30 PM local time (which is 9:30 PM SF time). The driver, who picked me up at the airport in Guatemala City and took me to my hotel, was really nice. I talked to him in Spanish for pretty much the whole ride which was cool! I met the program coordinator or something at Tecun Uman which is the language school I'll be at for the 3 weeks, and then I went to my room. I have 3 full size beds in my room!! Lots of space to spread my stuff out! :D And a TV with like 90 channels, including ESPN (in Spanish) wooo! My room:

But I'm only staying there for 2 nights, and then on Sunday I'm going to my homestay, where I'll stay the rest of the time. I get my own room in the homestay, with wifi, and I'm the only person staying in that house. I had to pay $15/week extra for that.

This morning, Gustavo (a Humanitravels in-country representative that's available for me 24/7 in case I have any problems) came to my hotel and gave me a 45-minute orientation about the area. I have the rest of the day and tomorrow until noon to do whatever I want now! I just got some money from the bank (the exchange rate is about 7.5 Quetzals to a US dollar) and just finished eating lunch at this cafe that has free wifi that I'm at right now.

Oh and my hotel lobby has wifi too, but not my room. Now I'm going to go get a prepaid phone with a Guatemalan number, find a church I can go to tomorrow (and the next couple weeks), and try to find a sports bar that'll show Giants games!! :) Don't worry, I won't spend a lot of time watching the Giants, but I want to be able to watch at least a little. Then I'll just wander around and explore the rest of the city! It's a really tiny city - this is a map of the whole city! Everything is walkable. (Click on the picture to enlarge)

I'll be putting photos here throughout the trip.

Feel free to leave comments, ask questions, whatever. :)

Oh I just remembered, thanks to my wonderful mom for bringing my SIM card from home to the airport and missing her doctor appointment for me because I forgot to bring it...my regular US cell phone # works! BUT I have to pay $1.99/minute for calls, 5 cents to receive a text and 50 cents to send a text. So I'm not gonna be using it much. And please don't text me like random stuff or anything, cause then I'll have to pay. Thanks :D