Antigua, Guatemala: Desayuno, Almuerzo, y Cena…Guatemalan Style.

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)!!

Now that’s what I’m talking about!!! :D