astrid

A perfect weekend on the beach....!!!

So yeah – I’m still alive….and sorry there haven’t been any news on here for a while, but for the last week I was just a bit caught up with my daily life here in Antigua – teaching German, going out, dancing, etc. … still went to do and see some new things, i.e. some galleries and museums and some of the nice hotels with swimming pools here…. Aaahhhh…great…. But nothing really special and extra-ordinary happened, and that’s why I haven’t written very much – well, not really anything – here on my blog…. Lo siento…

But the weekend was just amazing once again and now I have lots new and interesting things to write about…. Sonja and I went to SIN VENTURA on FRI night – almost as usual by now … had a really good time there and we met 2 nicec American guys who offered us a ridee to the beach the next day….. but we had already maded plans to drive down there with 2 other friends – Francisco and Hugo – so we dedcidedd to stick with our original plan cause they were also gonna drive back to Antigua on Sunday,and just told our American friends in which hotel they could find us in Monterrico….

So we left from Antigua about 10.30am on SAT morning and poor Sonja wasn’t feeling well at all cause she had actually been to the hospitel on FRI night / SAT morning at 4am and had got an injection against her ear infection and was on Antibiotics now…. But she still wanted to go to the beach for the weekend and was just sleeping on the back seat for most of the ride…. Poor girl…… it was a super-beautiful drive frfom Antigua to the Pacfific Coast – about 2 hours through amazing Guatemalan country-side – felt like we were in a different world….

The coolest thing was the little canal that we had to cross with our car to get from Puerto San Juse to Monterrico….. about 40m wide eand since there are no bridges to cross the water, all cards and other vehicles are just being loaded on little lanchas (Floesse) and then get shipped over to the other side….. it’s the coolest things ever..!!! I had never seen anything like that before…. There are about 6 ot 7 lanchas crossing the canal back and forth all day long – some of them are only big enough for 1 or 2 cars, others can carry up to 8….

From the other side of the canal to the beach it’s about another 30 – 40 minutes…. We stopped along the war to take pics of some of the many sponge plantations and the pashtes – raw sponges – that are drying alongsided the road…. Then we met this really sweet local lady who invited is to visit her house and her fish-farm, and even Huge and Francisco pointed out that the local people in this area are a lot nicer that anywhere else in Guatemala…..

Our hotel was a very basic but nice enough place right by the beach…. Victor had booked a room for Sonja and me and he was staying there with his family and some other friends as well this weekend….
We spent the afternoon by the beach – black volcano sand and amazing waves – and by the pool of our hotel….. just poor Sonja couldn’t enjoy the water because of her ears… aaahhh – we gotta go back some time when she’s fully fit again…. It´s so nice there and actually reminded me a bit of Vieques, but even smaller and more laid-back beach community…. SAT night we went to this beach bar – EL ANIMAL – just a few metres from our hotel and our American friends had actually found us as well and came with us….very cool place, not very huuge but enough space for a dance floor, the music was nice enough and they even played some Salsa and Cha-cha as well….. good thing that Miguel – one of the Salsa teachers from Antigua – was with us, so the dancing was actually really fuun…. And that bar – EL ANIMAL – stayed open much longer than any other places I´ve been to in Guatemala so far….. it was about 2.30am by the time we left frfom there to go to an After-Party at another hotel a few hundred metres further down the beach…. Was fun there too and much more comfortable hanging out in the pool there than sleeping on our hard hotel beds….. oh yeah – the weather in Monterrico is actually super-hot and huumid, not as mild and sometimes cold at night as in Antigua, so it was no problem to go swimming at 4am…..

When I got back to our hotel on SUN morning, Sonja still wasn´t feeling too good and after I tried for an hours to get some sleep on my hard bed – just stone and a thin mattress - but was very unsuccessful with that, , I went to buy some water and bread and bananas for her…. Funny how many people were up at 7.30am on a SUNmorning already and drinking beer in the streets….. different life there….

When I got back I met Victor´s uncle and sisters in the restaurant across the street from our hotel and they invited me to eat with them….was a great SUN brunch with steak, platanos, pancakes and fruits…..nice….

Sonja was feeling a little bit better later on too and came to the pool with us to get some sunshine and a bit of a tan at least…. Then we went to visit a little turtle and Iguana farm and spent the rest of the day with Victor, Miguel and Katalina en la playa and by the pool before we left from Monterrico about 5.00pm to head back to Antigua….

The same amazing scenery on the way back again, until it started to rain super-hard when we were about 1 hour from Antigua…. But with super-nice music and lotsa great memories of a fantastic weekend it didn´t really matter so much…. We got back about 7.30pm, and I just had some food and a shower and then went to bed at 10pm – super-tired after a night without sleep before….. what a perfect weekend…!!!

So now I´m back in Antigua to teach Eunice – my German student from Belize - for another week…. We have another Goodbye-Party for Hermance, JP and Katalina tonight (they´re all leaving tomorrow)…. Then I gotta figure out what to do with the other job that I got offered here in CAFÉ FLOR, where and how to celebrate my birthday and also when to leave for Mexico next week…. So if you don´t hear / read from me for another few days – please don´t worry – it´s all good here and I´ll write more news again as soon as they happen…. Promise…. xxxx

posted by Astrid @ 6:17 PM 0 comments

a super-nice and relaxing weekend in Antigua....

so this weekend I just stayed in Antigua, no trips, not travels and stuff.... but it was all super-nice and relaxing and just what I needed...

my first German lesson yesterday morning went great.... was loads of fun, I really enjoyed it and looking forward to my next student tomorrow morning.... I´m really happy with how everything worked out here with this job and my new accommodation.... all great...!!!

moved some of my stuff over to my new place yesterday and the rest today... all really nice there and I´ve pretty much arranged everything in my new room already....

yesterday it was raining a lot and I just watched 2 movies with some people in my house in the afternoon.... FRI and SAT night I went to SIN VENTURA with Sonja and some other friends.... really good both times - even though the music was a bit mixed....

today Sonja and I went to the mercado and some other places in Antigua to show Caroline, the new girl from Quebec who just moved into Marta´s house yesterday, around a bit.... was a really nice afternoon as well.... and it didn´t even rain that much....

big hug und bis bald wieder mit mehr news... xx

posted by Astrid @ 6:07 PM 0 comments

and now I have a job here.... or - how many things can happen in one day....

yeah - so many things happened here in the last 24hours and changed my travel plans a bit.... crazy....but all good.... and funny how those things work out some time.....maybe I was just meant to be in Antigua for a bit longer.... ;)

so WED night there was a big football (soccer) game here.... GUATEMALA vs. PANAMA - one of the qualifying games for the World Cup in Germany next year....
Alex and I wantched it in the house of his host family cause they´re much more into sport than Marta Julia - she didn´t even know that the game was on until I told her about it.... ;) and the son and nephew of Alex´family came over as well to watch it, so it was lotsa fun...!! And - Gracias a dios - GUATE won a pretty exciting and partly ugly game with lotsa fights and cards with a last second goal in the 94th minute...!!! 2 : 1 !!! AMAZING...!! and a step closer to Germany for them....

A few people were celebrating in the streets here afterwards, but it must have been much better in the capital where the game took place... then we wanted to go for some coffee and Ice cream afterwards, but all cafes were closed already (22.20pm) , so we ended up in LA SALSA with Nachos and coke.... was fine too...

and yesterday morning I walked past Carlos Salsa Academy to say HI and was saying sth. to one of his students in German and funny enough the GUATE LINDA Language Center next door was looking for a German teacher and must have over-heard me and to cut a long story short - I have a job here for next week now...!!!
Gonna start with my first 2 students tomorrow morning from 9.00 -11.00am - 2 students from the capital who want German conversation practice - and then I have another student everyday next week from 8.00 - 12.30

so that was never really part of my plan to work on this trip, but it just came up and I have another week until I have to be in Cancun, well - plan and promised to be in Cancun, and I think it´s a great opportunity for a new experience.... of course, the money is almost nothing and I won´t get rich with this, but it´s gonna pay for a week accommodation and food here easily.... and compared to all those other people here who actually pay money to do some voluntary work in Guatemala or Central America it´s a pretty good deal I think....

I just won´t be staying with Marta Julia´s family next week - cause u can only stay in the families of the school when you are actually studying Spanish there - but I´m gonna move to a friend´s hostal just across the street.....really nice place too.... :)

last night it was also Alex´ last night here - by now he should already be in Costa Rica - and his super-nice host family had invited me to their house for his Goodbye-Dinner... really swet people.... and while we were having dinner they had the TV on in the background and were watching parts of the World Youth Day in Cologne and the arrival of the pope their and his speech..... nice....and it was funny somehow to here the pope and some german commentary on TV here in GUATE.... small world... ;)

later we went dancing at TOREROS with Sonia, Yash, another Alex and Victor... not as busy as the week before, but fun enough and met a nice dancer from Japan there....
but it was also raining a lot all day yesterday - yes, unfortunately it seems like the canicual is almost over now... too bad... and it was still raining when we left from TOREROS.... but somehow we all managed to fit into Victor´s car and he was so seet to give us a ride back home....
then Sonia and I ended up talking for ages about things and stuff y cosas.... and since were still up at 3.00am we went over to Alex´house to say Bye before he took his taxi to this airport....

yep, not much sleep last night and a un pocito cansada ahora.... tonight is also Hermance´s Goodbye Dinner and then I gotta prepare my first German lesson for tomorrow morning.... ;)

to everybody who reads this - have a great weekend und bis bald....xxxxx

posted by Astrid @ 10:35 AM 0 comments

why is it always the same...

and u always meet some really nice people just before you are about to leave from a place again...?? just not fair... had a great time in SIN VENTURA last night.... Carlos and some of his friends from the capital came to Antigua and it was lotsa fun dancing with them.... and met some other really nice local people who only just got back from Switzerland 4 days ago.... oh well - the good thing is that my travel plans are more or less flexible and I can always come back or stay longer...

posted by Astrid @ 10:37 AM 0 comments

San Pedro and Lago Atitlan

posted by Astrid @ 10:33 AM 0 comments

Trip to Lago Atitlan, Panajachel and San Pedro

Saturday night was another really fun Salsa night at LA CLAVE in the capital.... Lucy and I met lotsa Mexicans there, nice guys and some were even fun to dance to with and they might come to Antigua tomorrow again for some more salsa at SIN VENTURA.... :)

ooohh - and I also met another guy in LA CLAVE again who was also in the bar that I went to with Juan Carlos on FRI.....funny...this small world....

and then yesterday, after a nice breakfast with pancakes, we - Juan Carlos, Maria, their kids and I - drove to LAGO ATITLAN (pics above) .... very beautiful lake about 2 hours from GUATE city.... we drove through a few other departments of Guatemala and beautiful countryside till we arrived in the main village PANAJACHEL.... pretty busy and touristy, so we just left the car in a car park there and took a little Lancha (small boat) across the lake to another village, SAN PEDRO.... much smaller and quieter, but with a lot of churches - catholic ones, but also quite a few of the many sects in Guatemala as Juan Carlos explained to me....

but the bouncy ride in the lancha was well worth it and we had a really nice lunch there, walked around the village for a bit, before we headed back to Panajachel with almost the last lancha of the day - there are no more lake crossings after 5.00pm each day cause the clouds are coming down to low over the lake, it gets really foggy and windy and to dangerous to cross it by boat.....

our drive back through the mountain and to Antigua also took much longer than in the morning, cause it was really foggy and rainy up there too, and getting dark as well.... but we got back safely, and Juan Carlos dropped me off at my house in Antigua before they went back to their place in the city....

I was pretty tired after all the travelling, dancing, volcano climbing, but talked for a while with Marta Julia, Hermance and Jean Paul, a new guy from DC (well, France originally) who had just arrived at our house in the afternoon.... he had just got back from a year studying in Beirut and is now here for 2 weeks to study Spanish before he goes back to school in DC for his last term.... really nice and interesting guy to talk to....

what a great day, what an amazing weekend...!!

posted by Astrid @ 6:16 PM 0 comments

Lava on Volcano PACAYA...

another amazing weekend couch-surfing in the capital.... Juan Carlos picked me up from my house in Antigua last night after my Spanish class.... he had another CS friend, Susanne from Austria, with him who had also been studying Spanish in Antigua for a few weeks as well..... so we all went back to his place in GUATE and had lots of pizza there with his family and Susanne´s friends Regina y Ricardo who came to pick her up and take here to the Pacific Coast the next day....

after Ricardo, Regina and Susanne had left, we went for a little walk around his neighborhood - yeah, walking around Guatemala city at night - in Zona 10, and we were really safe there too..... nice area as well and we even found a little bar called SABOR LATINO where I could show Juan Carlos some Salsa and Merengue steps....

this morning we had a great breakfast with Maria, his wife, and their kids Jorge and Amanda, and then left to drive to volcano Pacaya, about 30km from Guatemala city.... it was a pretty steep and tough 2 hours climb to the top of the volcano, but soooooo worth it (even though we got a little bit wet on the way back down)....

but as you can see on the pics here the lava rivers that we saw up there were just totally amazing.... we were about 50metres away from it, but could still feel the heat from the running lava and smell the sulfur in the air.... wwooowww !!!! I had never seen anything like that before and it was just great great great.... really felt like we were on another planet.... out of this world....

we also stopped by LAGO AMATITLAN on the way back to his house....nice lake pretty close to GUATE city...

so tonight I´m gonna meet Lucy and Byron again for some more salsa dancing than last SAT night... ;) and tomorrow we´re gonna drive to Lago Atitlan.... what a great weekend...!!

posted by Astrid @ 6:31 PM 0 comments

Volcano PACAYA, Guatemala

posted by Astrid @ 5:58 PM 0 comments

mas fotos de la capital....

Palacio Nacional..... y la cupula de la catredala metropolitna....

posted by Astrid @ 11:27 PM 0 comments

at Juan Carlos place in GUATE city...

posted by Astrid @ 10:02 PM 0 comments

The Motorcycle Diaries

yep - I finally made it last night and watched THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES in a small Cine-Bistro here in Antigua... en español with English subtitles.... and I actually understood some of the Spanish as well....not all, cause a lot is with a strong Argentinian accent....
but totally amazing movie.... I really really loved it....
and everyone out there who hasn´t seen it - GO AND WATCH IT...!!!
It´s just sooooooo good and I would watch it again anytime.... and gonna read the book as well..... that guy, Che Guevara, was really an amazing person....

posted by Astrid @ 11:39 AM 0 comments

yyyaaiiiii - we have water again....!!!

so yeah - last night at about 7.30pm our water stopped running....there was an accident on calle 7ta. and one of the main pipes brokes, so the water for our area was turned off.....great....no-one knew about it before and we couldn't safe any water in buckets for the toilet or so.... and TUE is a good Salsa night here at SIN VENTURA and I met this guy from Italy there who's been living in France for the last few years.....great dancer, was lotsa fun, and finally a chance for some On2 again....yaaiii..... but got home super-sweaty (well, after I tried to wash my face a little bit in the bathroom at SIN VENTURA, where they did have some running water....luckily), and then only had some wet wipes at home instead of a shower.....oh well.... managed somehow and our water was back on this morning for a nice shower.... yyyaaaiiii....!!! and I guess I really shouldn't complain about little things like that, especially after I got very very sad emails from my friends Anja in Germany and Hoami and Frank in Vancouver over the last 2 days.... there are much worse things in this world than a night without a shower..... guys - I'm soooooo sorry for you and I'm with you in my thoughts... lotsa love from Guatemala....

posted by Astrid @ 11:55 AM 1 comments

with the chicken bus into the capital....!!!

posted by Astrid @ 8:34 PM 0 comments

After a great weekend in the city that everyone had scared me of.... but thanks to CS (www.couchsurfing.com) I had a fantastic time there..!!

Wooww.... where do I start to write about this weekend...??

Everybody that I had talked to about Guatemala and travelling there had totally warned and scared me of the capital - GUATE city.... so I ahd very very mixed feelings when Lucy had invited me to come over to her place there and stay with her on SAT night...

after we had actually been in the same places in Antigua on SAT night - SIN VENTURA and LA SALSA - but failed to recognise each other, we finally met in the Central Park of Antigua on SAT morning and went for a coffee with Maryanne, another CS friend.... both really nice girls, and then I decided to go and see for myself what GUATE city is really like and went back there with Lucy in the afternoon...

we took the chicken bus from Antigua to the bus terminal there which takes about 80mins and was an adventure in itself....even though Lucy said we did actually have a pretty luxurious ride with a seat for each of us.... and the guy next to me who was falling asleep and leaning on me half of the way was apparantly nothing compared to other people she had next to her on the bus before...

her house in GUATE is about 15 mins walk from the bus terminal via a weekend market and past some of the government buildings...she lives in a pretty nice area between Zones 4 and 5 with lotsa little bars, cafe, shops and restaurants nearby....

when we got back to her place, her friend Estuardo was just finishing to polish his super-cool Suzuki bike outside their house.... and then I was lucky enough to go for a little ride around their neighbourhood with him....great...!!

then one of their friends - Denise - came over for coffee and we were just hanging out and chatting at Lucy´s place for a few hours until her friends Noelle and Tita came to pick us up.... really nice girls who are both pretty tall for Guatemaltecans, which was great and made me feel less foreign.... ;) I actually found that generally the Guatemaltecans that I saw in the capital were lot more wordly, better-looking and better-dressed thatn the ones in Antigua...

so then we went to the Jazz Bar (Blue Note) about 10mins from Lucy´s house where Noelle´s cousin had a fundraising gig with his band cause they´re going to participate in a Jazz Festival in Atlanta, GA, next weekend.... and even though it was pretty close by we went there with Noelle´s car and everything was very safe....

nice place and the music was great.... I loved it....they were playing a mix of Flamenco, Jazz and Latin-American folk music.. just 3 guys with guitars and one percussionist, but it was just amazing.... beautiful music...

later Lucy´s friend Byron joined us there....she had called him cause he likes salsa as well and she did just everything in her powers to get me to dance salsa in her city as well...soooo sweet... but by the time we left from Blue Note is was already 11.30pm, so we only got to EL CLAVE aournd midnight, and same as in Antigua - everything in the capital closes at 1.00am
so we had another 40 minutes of Merengue and Reggaeton there, and then one more salsa song before they closed.... was a really great and fun night though, and we´re probably gonna go back there next SAT, just a bit earlier...

at her place we were just chatting with Estuardo - who had met us at EL CLAVE as well - for a while until I almost fell asleep on her sofa and went to bed instead.... her housemate was still on vacation in Canada, so I had her big bed to myself....great...

on SUN morning Estuardo cooked a great breakfast with pancakes and Pitaya - the pinkest fruit I´d ever seen !!! - for us.... super-good....
and then I was lucky enough that he wanted to go back to Antigua himself to catch up with Maryanne, and I got a ride with him on his great bike....aaahhhh - it was just amazing and soooooo much fun...!!! loved it...!!
he drove me back to Marta Julia´s house in about 50mins and since he couldn´t get a hold of Maryanne on her phone, he decided to come with Alex and me.... we had planned to walk up a little hill at the edge of Antigua from where you have a beautiful view over the city and also the volcano Agua.... I actually thought it would would take us about 2 hours or so to get up there, but it´s much much much closer than I expected and we got to the top in about 30mins.....enjoyed the view for a while, walked around up there for a bit and then back down to the city centre where we had some food, bumped into one of Alex´s high-school friends from back home (Johannisberg), and then I also had some ice cream.... it was great - Coco, Dulce de Delche and Guanaba - but maybe I should have had it cause I felt a bit sick this morning.... oh well....

then Estuardo went to meet Maryanne at her cousin´s place in Santa Ana, Alex went home and I did too....met the new girl in our house, from DC, who´s gonna be there for 2 weeks I think, had a quick shower and then had to rush to meet everyone again at 5.45pm to go to the quiz night at REILLY´s (Irish Pub here in Antigua).... Yeah, very British thing to do - but I hadn´t been to a pub quiz for ages and it was actually lots of fun, even though we - Lucy, Estuardo, Jeremish, Maryanne, her sister Shelley, Alex, Lisa and myself - didn´t really do too well in the end....

then Lucy and Estuardo went back to GUATE city, Maryanne and Shelley back to Santa Ana....Alex and I walked Lisa back home and stopped by a few shops and movie places on the way back to our houses and saw the last part of Kill Bill II in English with Spanish subtitles....

great night, amazing weekend...!!! and most of it wouldn´t have happened if it wasn´t for CS...!! Thanks again Casey, Seb and co. !!

posted by Astrid @ 11:43 AM 1 comments

Dinner picture con Marta, Hermance and Sonia....

posted by Astrid @ 8:32 PM 0 comments

we DO have music at home and everything is super-great here now...

so yeah - WE DO actually have a CD player in our house here....!!! it was just a bit hidden away underneath some Guatemaltecan artesanias.... but I asked Marta Julia the other day, and then we were playing some of my salsa CDs and she looooooved them and now we're listening to them all the time.... yaaaiiii....great..... guess I gotta make some copies for her, cause she really enjoys that music.... and also my teacher Rolando wants a copy of my CD with the Salsa version of Careless Whisper now.... we've been working with some songs and on the translation of the lyrics over the last 2 days and it was super fun.... aaahhh - and Carlos wants copies of my CDs as well of course... so again - super-big THANK YOU again to Max and Victor for mixing and burning those CDs for me before I left London.... they're the only 2 that I took on my trip, but everyone who's heard them so far really liked them.... thanks guys...!! went dancing again last night at TOREROS....was lotsa fun and actually better than TUE at SIN VENTURA cause the dancefloor is a bit bigger and we had more space.... Hermance and Sonja were too tired to go out, so Doreen (the girl from Hamburg who's actually an actor at the Thalia-Theatre there) and I went there with Alex and Jeremiah, who live in our street as well..... was great and we had our very own personal body-guards on the way back home again.....super-safe...!! In return we taught them their first Salsa and Merengue steps and they were both doing really great for their first time on the dance-floor...!! Carlos, his brother and their friends got there a bit later as well and was lotsa fun again to dance with him.... so now everything is really great here and I do actually feel very much at home and not like a tourist anymore.... at night we always eat dinner together at our house and Marta Julia is really like a mother for us....super-sweet.....she reminds me a lot of my first teacher at primary school, Frau Bonk. Hopefully I'll have some pics of her to post here soon.... tonight it's Chris' last night in Antigua (another student in our house, who's going back home to the US tomorrow morning), so we're gonna have a Goodbye dinner for him.... but he's a theology student, and doesn't go out very much, so I don't think he's gonna go dancing with us tonight either.... as before, the food here is just amazing...!!! I really haven't eaten so much great, healthy and freshly prepared food every day for a long, long time... and no stomach or any other health problems here for me at all..... maybe a few mosquito bites, but that's all..... and everybody keeps telling me that I really don't need to be worried about Malaria here.... I'm gonna meet some people from CS over the weekend, and planning some trips to Lake Atitlan, ChiChi and some volcanoes as well.... should all be great.... hope you're all gonna have a great weekend, wherever you are at the moment.... hugs and kisses from Antigua....

posted by Astrid @ 11:36 AM 0 comments

Don´t envy me for my breakfast here...

but it really is the best ever.... fresh pineapple, papaya, melons, bananas, mangos..... super-great pineapple and papaya smoothie....pancakes, French toast.... really getting spoiled here.... Naia, our cocinera de la casa, is just great....

and yeah - went dancing here last night at SIN VENTURA and was super-fun too...!!!

at first I went out with Hermance and Sonja to Monoloco where they have ladies´ hora feliz (HAPPY HOUR) on TUE night..... drinks for 2 quetzales which is like 25 US Cent or 35 € cent..... really a joke....

met 2 other guys from our school there.... Jeremy from OZ and Alex from Ruedesheim....yeah funny..... he was starting to explain to me whereabout in Germany it is until I had to interrupt him to tell him that I´m from Wiesbaden.... (for everyone who doesn´t know - Ruedesheim is a village in the Rheingau and only about 30mins from my hometown on Germany)

anyway, he´s an EBS- student (a private and bit posh business school in the Rheingau as well), but he´s actually pretty cool.... he´s studying Spanish here for 4 more weeks and will then do a semester at a University in Costa Rica, followed by another semester in Australia....

after Monoloco we went next door to SIN VENTURA where they have salsa on TUE night.... had a really good time dancing with Carlos and his brother.... but all the others I was with aren´t really into dancing, so they left early....
I walked home with 2 other girls later - Doreen (also from Germany, Hamburg) and Nikita - originally from India, but living in New Jersey at the moment, just got back from 2 years in Mongolia with the peace-chorps, and gonna start graduate school at Monterey University in September...

and it felt actually pretty safe walking home in a group like that.... it´s cool, cause in our street are a lot of families that host students so it´s easy to find people to walk home with....

but yeah - had a really nice time last night, dancing and meeting lotsa interesting people.... and now I do really like it here again ...

hugs from Guatemala....will keep you updated....

posted by Astrid @ 10:58 AM 0 comments

after 60 horas por aqui todo esta super-bien...!!

just had my second class with Rolando....was super-fun and really good....

talked lots about life here in Guate.... gangs, crimes, death penalty, government system, policia, kidnappings that happened to people he knows..... geography and different departementos de Guatemala..... also read some stuff in the newspaper about that beauty peagant that I went to with Carlos on SUN night....
everything super-interesting and I really enjoyed it a lot.... and we´re just talking in Spanish the whole time....it´s great great great...!!!

plano para mañana - we´re gonna work with some songs, lyrics and stuff....and I can take my CDs to the school and listen to them there.... yyaaaiii....happy now....

and also BTW - weather here has been great so far.... we´re right now en una canicula, que es un pequeño verano en el invierno....ein kleiner Sommer mitten im Winter.... so ever since I got here it´s been nice and warm and sunny even though it´s the rainy season at the moment....
but it´s been like that on pretty much my whole trip so far..... the sunshine always came with me wherever I went...!!!

posted by Astrid @ 6:31 PM 0 comments

mixed feelings after my 2nd night here....

posted by Astrid @ 11:12 AM 0 comments

La casa de Marta Julia....and pics of Hermance, Chris and me.....

posted by Astrid @ 8:24 PM 0 comments