I knew that when I came to Guatemala, one of the things that I had to do was climb a volcano. Lucky, Guatemala has over 30 volcanoes, 3 of which are currently active including Volcan Pacaya, which is considered one of the most active volcanoes on the planet.
Volcan Pacaya sits at an altitude of 2,552 meters or 8,373 feet as it looms over the western highlands of Guatemala venting sulfurous fumes and churning pockets of hot lava. Pacaya (a little info from Wikipedia here) first erupted approximately 23,000 years ago and has erupted at least 23 times since the Spanish conquest of Guatemala and after being dormant for a century, it erupted violently in 1965 and has been erupting continuously since then. The hike up to the summit of Volcan Pacaya takes about 2 hours and a guide is required for the climb to navigate the barren planes at the base of the volcano, as well as the steep climb up to the summit.
Even though I’m deathly afraid of heights, I decided a few days ago that I was going to go for it and actually take on climbing Pacaya. So, I was really excited, and up bright and early at 5am Sunday morning to meet up with the tour group and catch the shuttle to the Volcano. Once we had arrived, we met with our guide and set out on the trail to Pacaya, which is a 30 minute hike up from the entrance of the national park through various fields and forests, and up to the base of the Volcano. This is actually where I started filming, and as you will see, where I was in total shock at the massive size AND intimidating slope of the volcano. So rather than spoiling it with any additional elaboration, just watch the video and you can see for yourselves what its like to climb one of the worlds most active volcanoes!...
PS- If trying to view with Internet Explorer click the "Byvid7 link" on the video. For some reason Explorer is cutting off my videos when viewing my blog. FireFox works perfectly, so i would recommend using that instead.
So if you have ever wondered what its like for me here in Spanish immersion school, now’s your chance to find out!
My instructor Fernando was nice enough to allow me to film this morning’s conversation so that I could post a little bit of what my experience has been like here at the school for my family and friends on my blog.
Although I’m in class all day learning grammar, vocabulary, and other fun stuff; each morning Fernando and I have about an hour or so of uninterrupted conversation to help progress my skills in speaking the language. I managed snip out about 3 minutes and 21 seconds of related material from today’s conversation in order to put together this video (and don’t worry I included a section where I made a HUGE mistake… ha ha!)
Also, you can really see in the video what a great teacher Fernando is by the way he helps me along in the conversation, and helps me to correct the thousand or so errors that I make everyday when speaking. So, with out further adieu, here’s the video along with a few of my thoughts on the different parts of the conversation…
Section 1:We started off the video by talking about a party that the teachers had for all of their children at the school on Saturday. As it so happens, I was walking back from the café that day, and as I passed the school I saw some of the teachers coming out of the party. We also mention in the conversation that it was really lucky that the party was held on Saturday because a huge storm rolled into Antigua the next day and it rained cats and dogs. The weather remained the topic of the rest of the video.
Section 2: So here’s where I made my HUGE mistake! We were talking about the storm and well, you know; the word “fuerte” really sounds a heck of a lot like “suerte” so I mean, what’s the problem… right??Well, when you’re trying to say it was “raining really hard” (fuerte) and instead you say that it was “raining lucky” (suerte) people tend to get a little confused. Check out Fernando, he’s like …”What? (Como?) Suerte??” LOL!!
Section 3: This parts classic! So this morning it was cold and raining and I showed up to the class in my shorts. I’m a genius right? Well, Fernando was nice enough to say that I was muy “valiente” or “brave” for wearing shorts, but I think you can figure out that that wasn’t the case at all. ;)
Hi Everyone! Well, I found a little video that I had made during my second week here in Guatemala. I remember that after I had initially watched the video for some reason I decided not to post it. So, a lot has happened since then, namely I’ve moved into my own apartment, and I have about a dozen crazy stories to tell about my adventures here in Guatemala over the last 8 weeks (some of which may be a little inappropriate for the blog so maybe I’ll write a book about them one day…haha).
Anyway, I decided to watch the video again since I had not see it in a really long time (6 weeks later), and it really brought back the memories of all the fun people that we had in the family’s house when I was staying there. I think this video captures all the personalities of my friends from different countries that were there at the house, along with all the fun we had, not to mention that it also captures me struggling through my 2nd week of Spanish (I just watched it and was totally laughing at myself…LOL) and even though it’s a little bit cheesy, it should definitely be on my blog.
So since I haven’t posted in a while, get ready for the BOMB guacamole recipe, and a definite “blast from the past”…Enjoy!!
PS. There will also be a 1 beer usage fee for each time you use my guacamole recipe. I will be collecting any proceeds upon my return to the US. Thank you. :D
Hoy estoy perezoso y no deso escribir en mi blog. Por eso, decedi poner photos de La Antigua aqui solamente. Yo Espero despues de mirarte las photos, tendras un idea que es como vivir en La Antigua.
Es todo....adios!
PS. Yo Vivo una cuadra de La Merced (La Iglesia amarilla)
Just off the top of my head here are some things that you can buy here for less than $10: Note: (You will see the giant disparity between prices, as some of these things I buy in the tourist areas, and others off the beaten path. Also, you will see that most of the things that I buy revolve around food. Prices have already been converted from the Quetzal to the US Dollar using an approximate ratio of 8.25Q to $1US.)
$0.12- 4 freshly made tortillas
$0.36- A massive avocado the size of a softball
$0.48- 6 chocolate covered strawberries made to order
$0.97- Café con leche
$1.33- A strawberry ice cream and waffle cone
$1.45- 2 Gallo beers at the corner bar
$1.82- A Chorizo lunch including: macaroni salad, vegetables, tortillas, dessert, and a drink.
$2.06- A deli Sandwich
$2.18- A 2 egg breakfast including: beans, salsa, bread and coffee
$2.42- All of your laundry for the week washed and folded.
$2.79- 1 Gallo beer at the gringo bar
$3.03- A ham and cheese bagel sandwich with fresh tomato, sprouts, and mayo.
$3.03- A nice glass of Argentine Malbec or Chilean vino tinto
$3.64- The same 2 egg breakfast except with a HUGE steak including: beans, salsa, bread and coffee.
$3.64- Cover charge on Saturday night at the local disco (includes a free drink).
$4.36- A meal at MacDonalds (yes, that includes “Pollo McCrispy”.)
$4.85- A Steak sandwich dinner with french fries and a drink.
$6.06- An Abercrombie tee shirt
$9.70- A very nice dinner at a fine restaurant of your choosing, or a good bottle of imported wine from Chile/Argentina.
As of today, I will have been in Spanish emersion classes for 5 weeks and one thing is for certain… Spanish is definitely hard to learn!
Granted, I am actually trying to accomplish something in a matter of weeks that takes most people years to learn. However, I have noticed and would like to document, the 3 things that have struck me as most problematic during my first month of learning the language.
First and foremost, one of the tricky things about Spanish is that it seems really easy to translate directly over from English when you are first learning the language. When you think about the most elementary phrases such as “Buenos Dias” or “Como Estas” spoken by beginning Spanish speakers, the translation is a direct one from English with “Buenos” meaning “good” and “Dias” meaning “day or days”, or “good day”. Also there are a plentiful number of words that have a similar direct translation and there are many more that actually “sound” similar in English and Spanish.
Take the verbs “Usar”, “Pintar”, and “Necesitar” in Spanish for example. It is an easy guess for beginners learning the language that these words in English translate over as: to Use, to Paint, and to Need. However, once you begin to expand your vocabulary you will find that there are many words in Spanish that sound like a direct translation in English, but their actual meanings are far different, which presents a problem during the learning process because once you run into a few words that sound like a word in English but have an ulterior meaning, one begins to second guess the meanings of all similar words after only making a few mistakes.
Take the Spanish words “asistir” and “emberazada” for example. Given the number of words that have a similar sound as well as the same meaning in Spanish and English it is really easy to assume that these words mean “to assist” and “to be embarrassed” respectively, when in actuality they meanings are far different. In Spanish “asistir” actually means “to attend” and for example, if one actually uses the word “asistir” incorrectly when speaking, and then is corrected its could be quite embarrassing. So afterwards if you are to say “Oh, I am very embarrassed” (for using the wrong word) and you say “Oh, estoy muy embarazada!” you have actually just said “Oh, I am very pregnant!”.
For instance, this morning (true story here) I was talking to a teacher about eating spicy foods and I said that I always pile on a lot of muy picante salsa on “mis lluevos” or “my eggs” for breakfast. Turns out that when your say “mis lluevos”, you are actually referring to a certain part of the body, rather than your 2 egg breakfast. I was wondering why she practically spit out her coffee and started laughing hysterically as I was describing my breakfast! LOL. The correct phrase should have been, “los llueveos”.
Another example that I can use to illustrate the point, and one thing that I have worked on for weeks to stop saying incorrectly, is the Spanish word for “tonight”. Every time that I needed to say “tonight”, as in “tonight, I’m going out” or, “I need to study tonight”, I would use a direct translation from English to Spanish as “a” being “to” and “noche” being “night”, hence “a noche” in Spanish. However, this is incorrect since, “a noche” in Spanish actually means “last night”. So I have been constantly finding my self referring to things that I am going to do tonight, as things that I am going to do “last night” in Spanish.
Second, the orientation of the words in a question many times are reversed in Spanish. For Example, last night or “a noche” I was watching a movie on TV. Someone in the house asked me in Spanish “Have you seen this already”? Now as you can see as an English speaker, the orientation of the words in the question make complete sense here.
However, in Spanish things are quite different. The orientation of the words in the question are reversed, with the question being “Ya la viste?” or translated to English being, “already, this you have seen?” I mean, it really sounds like something Yoda would say straight out of Star Wars…right? So it proves very difficult for me to ask questions correctly in Spanish. I think asking a question in Spanish is kind of the equivalent of learning to write from right to left as opposed from left to right. So I guess the next time I have to ask someone a question in Spanish I’ll have to tell myself, “Think like Yoda dude, think like Yoda. And what ever you do, don’t say mis lluevos!!”
Finally, I have found that there are an extreme number of verb tenses in Spanish, when compared to English. Take the verb “make” in English. Off the top of my head I can thing of saying that verb a few different ways, “make”, “made”, and “making”. The different tenses of the verb in English are then helped our by adding other words in front of the verb. For Example, “we made”, “they make”, “you are making”, “I am going to make”, “he should have made” etc. So in this example I have given the different persons doing the action as well as a few different tenses of the verb for past, present, future etc. As you can see, the actual verb “make” rarely changes.
However, in Spanish the persons doing the action change the verb “make” or “hacer” in 5 different ways, “hago”, “haces”, “hace“, “hacemos”, “hacen” for the persons I, you, he/she, us, and they respectively. I have also only learned 6 tenses of the verb (there are 14 in total I believe) each with 5 different changes for the person or thing doing the action.
For example the different tenses for the “yo” or “I” form are as follows, “hago”, “hice”,”haria”,”hare”, “hacia”, and “haciendo”. Multiply that by the 5 persons doing the action and you have a possible outcome of 30 different variations of the verb! Now this is just a simplified example and yes, some conjugations are the same as “haria” can be used for I, as well as he/she, and the gerundio form does not change with the person, but you can see the struggle I’m having given the insane number of possibilities for the outcome of the verb depending on what you want to say, or what people say to you.
Well, that just about sums up the top 3 issues that I’m having with the language and have to say that despite these road bumps I am thorughly enjoying learning Spanish and I really love my school. Anyway, Given that this is turning into a rather large post I think I’m going to cut it off right about here. I will try to post again soon.
Until then, May the Force be With You... and remember to use mucho of picante on los lluevos!
It’s no secret that Guatemala produces great coffee, and today I was lucky enough to be able to tour the coffee museum and production facility in Antigua, which is one of the 5 coffee producing regions in Guatemala. The tour began with a complete history of coffee production in Guatemala as well as the origins and processes for producing great coffee, and concluded with a tour of the actual coffee farm and production facilities. Prior to the tour, really the only thing I knew about coffee was how to drink it.
Did you know that coffee originated in Ethiopia and was eventually brought to all the different parts of the world by the Spaniards hundreds of years ago? I thought that was a really cool fact! Anyway, it turns out that there are a couple different kinds of coffee beans that are produced today, all varying in different qualities. The best quality bean as well as the most expensive, is the Arabica bean, which is what is produced in the Antigua region in Guatemala. The bean is sold and typically blended with lesser quality beans to create the different kind of coffee blends that we’re all used to.
During the tour I discovered that the process of making coffee is extremely time consuming as well as a lot of hard work. First, the coffee plants are planted, and it take 3 years for the plant to grow and to begin producing the beans. Once a coffee plant has reached maturity it can produce beans for up to 10 to 20 years! Every year, just after the first rain of the season, amazingly, all of the coffee plants, or should I say trees because they are more like trees than plants, flower. They only flower for about three days and this is a signal from the plant that it is beginning to produce fruit. After the flowers disappear each plant begins producing a tiny little green fruit, that are about the size of small grapes (see the pictures). This is actually the coffee. After about a month, the fruit begins to ripen and turns bright red (see the pictures again). Once the fruit is ripe, it can then be harvested.
Each tree is picked by hand, which is an enormous task given the number of fruit on each plant, and only the red ripe fruit is selected. A coffee plant can be harvested several times during the year as the various fruit on the plant is produced and then ripens. Once the fruit is picked, it has to under go several different processes before it becomes the coffee we all know and love.
First, the fruit is opened and the red skin of the fruit is stripped away producing 2 tiny green coffee beans. The beans are then washed and begin the drying process, as it is necessary for the beans to be completely dry prior to the next stage of production.
At the coffee farms, there are these enormous concrete patios, the size of several football fields. The moist beans are then laid out to dry by the tens of thousands. The beans bake in the sun for 3 to 4 days and are constantly being turned over manually with rakes and shovels, to ensure that they are totally dry. So during the drying process there are thousands and thousands of coffee beans drying on these patios at any given time. Once the beans are completely dry they turn a very light brown color and are ready for distribution. The beans are then bagged in giant burlap sacks by hand and manually put onto trucks. This is extremely intensive labor as there are no machines to help with the bagging or forklifts to help with the loading.
Once the coffee has dried and been distributed, it is ready for roasting. Now this is where I found things to be really interesting, as prior to roasting all the beans are pretty much the same, with the exception of the different production qualities of the beans that I mentioned earlier.
So if all the beans are the same, what’s the difference between coffee and espresso? Is an espresso bean from a different kind of plant or a stronger version of the bean? How does that work?? Well I found out... It’s all in the roasting! For a light “breakfast” type of coffee, the beans are roasted at a very low temperature for 10-14 minutes. For your darker medium bodied coffee the beans are roasted from 14-18 minutes, and for a full bodied heavy “French” roast the beans are roasted at a high temperature for about 20 minutes. What about the espresso? Well, for an espresso roast, they blast the bean with super high temperatures for 24 or more minutes. And there you have it…coffee in a nutshell!
Well it was a really fun day, and it was awesome to learn all about coffee. We actually got to go into the roasting room and try 2 different types of the same bean, if that makes sense; one which was roasted for 14 min, and another that was an espresso roast and roasted for 24 minutes. It was really amazing in the distinction of taste with the espresso bean being a LOT stronger.
After our bean tasting experiment, our guide took us out onto a nice little patio shaded by the lush vegetation of the coffee farm where we were then served some 100% pure Arabica bean Guatemalan coffee. I think it was just about the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.
This just happened last night and I thought it was really cool, so I wanted to get it up on my blog quickly, so here we go:
I went to dinner at Café Flor last night and ended up hanging out for a little while. When I left to come back to the house I ran smack dab into a huge fiesta in Parque Central for the lighting of the lights and as it turns out, I got there just in time. The event is held every year in Antigua to kick off the Christmas Season. It was really fun and just what I needed on a Sunday night, so let the countdown begin!...
First off let me say, "Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!"
Ok, now on with the post...
After being here for a month it seems that I may have to make some adjustments to the overall plans of my trip. The good thing is, since my plans weren’t really rock solid plans to begin with, adjusting will be easy.
First, it looks as though I will have to get an apartment for my last month living in Guatemala, as opposed to staying with the family. I’ve done some analysis of my spending over the last 23 days, and it seems that I’m spending quite a bit of money here on a daily basis. I actually anticipated this while I was to be staying in Guatemala, since I’m also paying for the Spanish school, as well as costs of living and having fun.
One of the things that appealed to me about living with the family, other than being forced to speak Spanish 24/7, was that my meals were included in the payment for the accommodations. As it turns out, and as I’ve said in one of my previous posts, we don’t get fed very much around here. I know I eat a lot, and I have discussed this with other students in the house and they had said basically the same thing…that they are always hungry as well. As it turns out over the last 2 weeks, I’ve been going out and buying 2 to 3 separate meals a day, as well as eating what the family feeds me, or just completely skipping their meals all together; because bread, beans, water, and fried banana is not sufficient for a dinner, and I don’t care what anyone says about the issue, that’s a fact.
With that being said, and since I’m paying $400/month to stay with the family and I'm also buying 2 to 3 meals a day on my own, I think it would be more cost effective to rent a nice apartment for $200-$400/ month instead. With the savings, I could definitely be eating really well considering the fact that last night I splurged on: an Angus steak sandwich, french fries, a bowl of soup, a glass of Argentine Malbec, and a bottle of water at a high end restaurant which, including tip, only cost me $8.
Which also makes me wonder why I’m being fed such little food when I pay $100 a week to stay here. There are 4 other students that stay here aside from myself, which means the family is generating revenues of approximately $500 a week in US dollars. So if 1 huge meal plus wine at a high end restaurant is $8US, imagine what you could buy at the market with $500 per week! Seriously, you can feed a small army in Guatemala for $500/week, so it makes me wonder where the hell is all the money going?? Anyway, enough about food because it’s making me hungry…
Also, it looks like I may swap going to Belize for Costa Rica. The main reason being, is that a round trip flight to Belize from Guatemala City is outrageously expensive (I’m talking like $430!). I actually could take a bus to Belize City, but that would mean a very long trip there, and then I would have to turn around and return back through Guatemala City to fly over to Panama, since it’s my next destination. Flying directly from Belize to Panama would be out of the question since it’s even more expensive just for one way ($350-$500!). I figure it would be easier to fly one way into San Jose, Costa Rica from Guatemala City and bus through the country doing some exploring as I make my way into Panama. This way I could have an amazing trip through Costa Rica and save cash at the same time, as I want my entire trip to last as long as possible, or at least so that I wont be forced to return to the US before I’m ready. I also wouldn’t lose any of my Spanish in Costa Rica. In Belize everyone speaks English and I would be concerned that I would start to forget what I had learned. Even though I would have liked to have tasted the enormous lobsters in Belize that people have told me about, it looks like at this point Belize is out, and Cost Rica is in.
So to sum it up, there are a few changes to the plan and ahhhhh....life is still good. :)
-Birthdays are celebrated by the lighting of firecrackers at 6am. -Many people assume that I am Guatemalan. -Mac Donalds serves fried chicken called “Pollo Mc Crispy”. -Soccer is the sport to watch here. -You cannot flush any sort of paper waste down the toilet… Get it? -The street dogs walking around routinely use the sidewalk, and look both ways before crossing the street... amazing! -There are a lot of Gringos here…I’m one of them. -You can pay $7.00US for lunch or $1.70US for lunch, if you know where to go. -Never imagined that I’d be saying…“The worst date I’ve ever been on in my life happened in Guatemala”. LMAO -Beans come with every single meal. Period. -Sitting in the park is my favorite thing to do. -Drinking is a close second. -I was picked up on by 2 gay guys who didn’t want to believe me when I told them, “I am NOT gay.” -The women here are beautiful. -99.9% of the house wines are from Chile. -I was reminded that I have a serious allergy to scented laundry detergent. -When it is quiet you can hear the volcano rumbling. -The mosquitoes love me. -There is a talking parrot that lives next door. It knows more words in Spanish than I do. -Spanish is easy after 5 beers. -Spanish is hard when you are hung-over. -Café con leche is good. -Soggy pig skin for dinner (Chicharron) is bad. -That’s all for now. Bye!
Once a year in Antigua each restaurant sends its best Meseros (waiters) and Meseras (waitresses) to compete in a grueling competition with hopes of claiming the title and becoming the reigning champion of the Carrera de Charolas. This competition takes the utmost skill, incredible balance and precision, and stamina that goes beyond just that of a normal Mesero. Given 4 beverages on their tray, each Mesero must make their way through the streets of Antigua on a mile long course, carefully navigating the cobblestone streets and dodging potholes at every turn, all while balancing a full tray of beverages with a mere single hand. If any of the beverages fall, or two hands are used at any time, they will be disqualified. The competition is fierce and only one can be named champion. Who will come out on top? Who will reign supreme and forever be immortalized into the halls of history??
Haha… Ok, I think I’m getting a little carried away at this point. LOL!! But all joking aside, it was a really great race and tons of fun! Everyone was out to have a good time and we really cheered hard for all the Meseros and Meseras. I was stoked that I got to see it, and I tried to make a really fun video of the race so... Enjoy!
Yesterday we had some really great weather, so I went with some of the guys from the house and hiked up to the cross above Antigua. It was a nice hike and the view was amazing with the massive Vulcan Agua looming in the background. Check out the pics here...
It’s Friday afternoon and I just got back from chilling at the park. I had gotten out of class at around 12 and came back to the house for some food and a little R&R. I had a few too many cervezas last night and the phrase of the day was definitely “Hola, Estoy de Goma” or “Hello, I’m hung-over”. One thing is for certain, drinking muchas cervezas a noche and then having to spend your morning in Spanish class definitely don’t mix. Other than that, I’m really stoked I had Mario this week as mi maestro because he’s totally cool. We spend half the class just joking around in Spanish, and every other example in class is either about cervezas or las bonitas chicas en el parque…LOL! I’m definitely going to ask for him as a teacher again before I leave because he was great and I had a lot of fun!
Anyway, I came home from class and stuffed myself full of Albondigas y arroz. And as usual, a meal like that when you’re hung-over puts you to sleep faster than a Mike Tyson upper cut. Needless to say, I had a nice little nap this afternoon, ha ha.
But it’s always hit or miss with the meals here at the house though. The meals are either really good, or really bad. I don’t think the family eats much meat, and myself being a huge meat eater it kind of presents a problem. Typically from what I’ve experienced, we only eat meals with meat for lunch. Breakfast is usually some kind of cereal with fruit or maybe a pancake or two, then lunch will have some sort of chicken dish or carne with rice (which is usually awesome), and dinner is usually totally all fried carbs of some sort with beans. I believe on Thursday night we had beans, bread, and these little fried tortillas with cheese in the middle; and then last night we had beans, bread, fried bananas, and some sort of fried sweet potato type fruit. I don’t know about anyone else, but I cant really get full on that type of diet, so a lot of the time during the first week I was going to bed and being really hungry y no es bueno.
So I’ve had to kind set up a game plan as to what I’m going to do for lunch or dinner depending on what’s going to be served. I found out the hard way, when you don’t eat the meals that the family prepares, and then go out to eat or buy food without a good reason, the family gets a little offended. I don t even want to go in to what they said a few days ago when I decided to bring home a roasted chicken that I had picked up while out and about during the afternoon. I heard so many comments about “the pollo” that I could write a book… Ha ha ha.
So last night I ate a few fried bananas, and some beans and chilled out and talked to everyone for a while. Then at about 8 or 9 I told everyone I was going out for a bit for some creveza and then went and got myself a huge steak!
I found a pretty sweet place called Casa El Escudo that has a little café where you can get steak dinners for about 60Q ($7US) and huge pasta dinners with carne for 30Q ($3.50US). Casa El Escudo also has two bars which where jammed packed full of people and that’s where I ended up downing too many Gallos. Mario also hooked me up with an awesome little place for lunch right by the school. They have breakfast (eggs, beans, tortillas) for 10Q ($1.19 US) and the other day I had an awesome churrizo lunch that included macaroni salad, steamed veggies, tortillas, a drink, and a pineapple dessert for 15Q ($1.79)!!
I’m really stoked right now because I had a great weekend hanging out in the park, and also because I actually managed to survive my first week of Spanish immersion school! Now, when I say immersion, I mean total immersion! That means zero English, in class, and at home!! The past week has been really intense, in and outside of class, so here’s a recap of what’s been going on…
Let’s rewind to the beginning shall we? Before I left the US I signed up for 2 months of instruction at PLFM, which is short for Fundacion Proyecto Linguistico Francisco Marroquin. PLFM is the oldest Spanish language school here in Antigua, and is a non profit where all the revenue supports Myan language literacy projects. The program at PLFM is a total immersion program, which means that you have intensive individual Spanish instruction one-on-one with an instructor during the day, and then you room and board with a Spanish speaking family at night for the duration of the program. In both cases there is little to no English spoken, hence; total immersion.
One of my good friends once told me that the key to learning Spanish is to get your ear accustomed to hearing the language, and I remember the total culture shock that I experienced last March in Buenos Aires when I got off of the plane and heard all the people speaking Spanish. It was a kind of an “oh shit, I’m screwed” feeling because I couldn’t make out a single word and I was going to be there for 2 weeks! When people spoke to me it seemed as if all the words were running together, and I might as well have been listening to static on the radio, as opposed to listening to someone trying to speak to me in Spanish. So I was a little apprehensive when I arrived last week in Antigua, not to mention, delirious from not sleeping a wink on the flight.
When I arrived at my new home I was greeted by Yolanda, Javier, and their grandson Jerson. They welcomed me in and then immediately ushered me into the kitchen where I was served some amazing pollo con arroz (chicken with rice). I thanked them for the meal in my best Spanish, and tried as best I could to explain to them where I was from, and that I hadn’t slept since the prior morning. Even though they spoke no English and my Spanish was absolutely horrible, we seemed to laugh and have a good time over dinner regardless. It’s really great because they are such nice people, and it turns out that they have many different kinds of students that stay at the house.I ended up crashing out after I ate and got some of the best sleep of my life that night…LOL.
The next day I met Lluven and Ices. They are two really nice girls, both 17 and 16 years old, who are on a work program with their schools. They come into Antigua and stay here at the house during the week and work in some small offices during the day to get some business experience, and then they go back home for the weekends. The girls are really nice and they love to help me with my Spanish. They are totally my new amigas!!
Their grandson Jerson is also really cool. He’s 12 and knows just a few English words. We had a really fun time the other night at the table. I came in and he was watching wresting. It turns out he’s a huge WWE fan, just like I was when I was his age. I was telling him all about my favorite wrestlers back in the day like Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior, and we had a great time laughing and watching guys get body slammed left and right. BTW, if you’ve never watched Mexican wrestling, those guys are seriously bad ass! I saw a guy jump completely out of the ring and do a triple back flip right onto another guys face!! Siiick!
Anyway, despite being a little apprehensive at first about staying with a family and being totally immersed in Spanish every second of the day, looking back, I’m really glad that I did it. I’m starting to pick a lot of things up and I’m beginning to be able to have real basic conversations with people. It’s kind of crazy how it works, because you start to get better at the language with out even being aware that you’re making progress. For example, Yolanda’s brother came over Friday night and I talked to him for about 3 minutes in Spanish with out even thinking about it. Then, when I went back into my room it hit me… I think I just talked to that guy with out using any English, did that actually just happen? Crazy!!!
Yesterday was awesome! After lunch I walked a few blocks down to Parque Central and hung out for most of the day. The parque, which is unbelievably beautiful, is centered around a 250 year old fountain called La Llamada del las Sirenas or “The Sirens Call”.
As it turned out, they had a bunch of festivities going on in the parque with some great food, music, and dancing. It was so nice to be able to just sit there and relax and enjoy my day. Here’s a little piece of what I was able to experience and I hope you enjoy it…
I made it! Now that I’ve been in Antigua for a few days, and I’m relatively settled, I have a little time to update my blog… So, yes I made it here safe and sound, but it was quite a trip!
I took the Red Eye from LAX on Sunday night assuming that I was going to be able to catch a few hours of sleep before my connection in Ft Lauderdale. I mean, that’s the point of taking the Red Eye…right? So wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t get one minute of sleep on the flight. We left LAX at 11:30 and were due to arrive in Florida at 7:00am eastern standard time. So basically, you only have about 4 ½ hours to try and get some sleep and it was pretty much impossible for me to go to sleep when we left at 11:30. I was awake for a good 2 hrs then just as I started to doze off we had a sort of “in flight emergency”.
So I’m sitting there dozing off and this girl comes walking down the isle really fast and bumps me pretty hard as she’s passing by, so I look up and she just collapses at the back of the plane. Her boyfriend was right behind her and managed to grab her as she’s falling. The flight attendants rushed over and the girl started coming to. I was within ear shot and heard her say that she started to feel weird at her seat and then felt faint. So they have her on the ground and are calling the captain on the intercom and I’m thinking, “Ok were going to have to do an emergency landing or something.” But after like a minute the girl came to and was talking and sort of back to normal. While this was all going on, one of the flight attendants was questioning the boyfriend and asking him all sorts of questions about her health right next to my seat so I got to hear everything that he said… like, “Yeah, shes late and we think she might be pregnant but we don’t really know for sure”. LOL!!! Anyway, to make a long story short; the plane landed right on time, the girl who might be pregnant was OK, and I got zero sleep.
After a 4 hour layover in Ft.Lauderdale, a terrible cup of coffee, and an egg sandwich that tasted like crap, I got on the plane to Guatemala City. It was a short flight, and I really have to give credit to the airline. I actually went the low cost carrier route and took Spirit Airlines and seriously they were really good. All the planes were brand new, so you didn’t feel like the wings were going to fall off in mid air or anything, and they were really efficient. So props to them!
When I arrived in Guatemala City, a driver from my Spanish school picked me up at the airport and gave me a ride to Antigua, where I will be staying for the next couple of months. So for those who don’t know here’s the deal…
I decided to do some traveling through Central and South America, and before I go through all those amazing countries I felt that I needed to learn Spanish so I don’t end up missing out on talking to the people and doing all the things that I wouldn’t normally do if I only spoke English. So, I enrolled in a SpanishEmersionSchool here in Antigua that a friend recommended. They put you up with a family and you have private Spanish lessons with an instructor at the school Monday-Friday. I’ve been doing the program for a few days now and its friggin awesome! The family is great, and everyone at the school is SUPER cool. But I’ll get into all that later and put pics up and everything of my Spanish school and the town where I’m staying.
So now here’s the good part, I managed to capture a little video as I made my way all the way down to Guatemala. I’ve been fooling around with my video editor in my downtime and put together a little clip of my journey so here it is…
PS. I did a little commentary right after I got out of the airport and stuck it in the middle of the video. The weather was a bit of a surprise and you’ll see what I mean…Lol. Oh, and by the way, if you’ve never seen what I look like totally exhausted after being awake for 26 hours straight, and in serious need of a shower, your about to find out…
I am writing this not for the eyes of the many, but for yours alone: for each of us is audience enough for the other.
-Epicurus
And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he has not lived long—he has existed long.
The wiseman lacks nothing but needs a great number of things, wheras the fool, on the other hand, needs nothing but lacks everything.
- Chrysippus
"Look, one day I had gone to a little village. An old grandfather of ninety was busy planting an almond tree.'What, grandad!' I exclaimed. 'Planting an almond tree?' And he, bent as he was, turned around and said: 'My son, I carry on as if I should never die'. I replied: 'And I carry on as if I was going to die any minute....' Which of us was right boss?"
- From Zorba the Greek
I wasn't born for one particular corner: the whole world's my home country.
-Seneca
Followers
For in his mind our profits underwent marvellous transformations: they became travels, women and new adventures. He was waiting impatiently for the day when he would earn a fortune, when his wings would be sufficiently big- "wings" was the name he gave to money- for him to fly away.
