I guess I am not very good at maintaining a blog seeing as I haven´t written for a month. Therefore, I think I will just try to touch on the highlights of the last month.
A few of us spent one weekend climbing Tajumulco, the highest point in Central America. It was a great climb, with a lot of great people. The climb itself was easier than Volcano Santa Maria because it wasn´t as step even though it was higher. We started our climb on a Saturday at noon. It was pretty cloudy so it made it harder to see the spectacular view of the mountains, but in general climbing through the clouds gave it a certain mystic vibe that was pretty cool. We made our base camp, had a bonfire, and ate soup and pasta before attempting to sleep in our cold tents. The alarm sounded at three in the morning and once again we began climbing. When we got to the top we all huddled together to keep warm. Our effort and our cold fingers were well worth it when the sun began to rise above the clouds. We all watched with our cups of hot chocolate as the sun illuminated various mountain peeks. The clouds almost looked like waterfalls pooling through the mountains. You could see for miles and miles, on clear day from the top you could see Mexico and the Pacific ocean. It was such spectacular view, I can´t wait to do it again! Oh yeah, and of course we got back just in time to watch the Steelers beat the Cardinals in the Superbowl.
We finished our first phase of the program in the beginning of Feburary. Before starting our second phase our entire group went on a weeklong excursion. The first night was spent in Guatemala City. Nothing too exciting happened there because it was more like a lay-over. However, there was a fútbol team staying at our hotel that we talked to for a little bit. We were excited to found out later that it was Mexico´s professional soccer team. That excitement was somewhat short-lived as we found out later that it was only the minor league team...still cool though.
The next day was pretty uneventful as we spent 10 hours on the bus on our way to Flores. We spent four days on the little island of Flores. It was a great place to relax and have a good time. The weather was absolutely perfect and the scenery was beautiful in our humble little town. We spent our days wandering around the city and enjoying boat rides on the lake. We also went to the ancient mayan ruins sites named Tikal and Yaxha. I have to say, it was pretty neat climb all the ancient monuments and try to imagine what life was like there hundreds of years before.
The second half of our trip was spent in Semuc Champey, what is said to be one of the most beautiful and exciting places in Guatemala. For me it definitely lived up to its reputation even if I did get a few bedbugs there. There is a river that flows through the jungle and at one point the water eroded the land so much that part of the river is now underwater. However not all of the water goes under the land, some of it is above ground and it creates little pools of bright blue water everywhere that are connected by miniwaterfalls. We spent a day climbing a mountain to get a better view of the river, swimming in the pools, and jumping off bridges (it only seemed appropriate finish our journey by jumping off a bridge into the river and floating on our backs all the way back to our cabins). We spent another day touring the nearby water-filled caves. It was quite exihilerating swimming through the caverns, climbing rope ladders up waterfalls, and jumping of cliffs all within the cave. We are all crossing our fingers, hoping that our plastic-clad disposible camera survived the trip inside the cave.
We were all sad to come back from our excursion. It was a great expericance and it provided a great opportunity for everyone in our group to get closer. However, there was a good feeling about coming home to Xela. Part of it had to do with the comfort of coming back to our city, it is finally feeling like we are getting acustumed to living here. Another part was that we were beginning phase two. Now, instead of taking 25 hours of Spanish everyweek in the morning, we are taking 15 hours in the afternoon. We also began our Tuesday/Thursday morning courses at Universidad Rafeal Landivar, it felt good to take actual courses as opposed to constant Spanish grammer and phrases. I think I am going to enjoy my classes even if it means that I have to walk farther to go to class (as opposed to classes at my Spanish school that was just across the street). I suppose the fact that I no longer have classes on Fridays makes up for it : )
That generally covers the biggest occurances in the last month. Therefore I will conclude with a few closing thoughts. One of the things that I enjoy the most about our Spanish school is that people all over the world attend it. I now have friends from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Australia, and not to mention people from all over the states. I also feel good about my relationship with my host family here in Guatemala. Our conversations are getting better as we are getting more comforable with each other and my Spanish is improving. We are taking salsa dancing lessons together and are spending more time just hanging out, I even brought my "sister" with me to a concert with all of my friends. I know that when it comes time to leave I will miss everyone and everything very much.
But don´t worry, I miss you all very much and I can´t wait to see you all! I hope everyone is doing well!
Angela
p.s. Happy Birthday Theresa and Jessica!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
I can´t believe I have already completed my third week at school. It has gone by so quickly and I am trying to make the most of it. Our initial part of the program goes by a weekly basis, so every Friday there is a graduation for the students who will no longer be continuing with the program. For the last graduation we each had to bring a different food, just like a potluck. None of us really knew what to bring so my friend I attempted to make jello cake. We didn´t have a lot of the ingrediants and the oven didn´t even say what temperature it was at, but all in all, I think it turned out well. The graduation in general was a lot of fun, we put all of the tables together and had a great time enjoying everyone´s company.
The next Saturday I took it pretty easy and relaxed for the majority of the day. I did this because at midnight a small group of us left school and headed toward the volcano named Santa Maria. After 4 1/2 hours of climbing we finally reached the top. The full moon was our main light source on the way up, the veiw of the city was absolutely amazing! Once we were at the top we enjoyed our hot chocolate while watching the sunrise over the mountains and watching a volcano errupt to the west. It was such and incredible and indescribable view! It was weird trekking down the mountain, in the light everything looked so different and unrecognizable. That was easily the most exciting thing I have done so far! Apparently the excitement really wore me down because I spent the next day and night sleeping.
One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is to wander around the city. I love exploring the city and meeting new people. One day I played tic-tac-toe with four little girls for about an hour! I also talked with a man that sells necklaces. He tried to teach me Spanish tongue-twisters, I wasn´t very good at them. Although, overall I feel a lot more comfident in my Spanish. We started our lessons at the very base of the language. It was so good for me to start so far back, when you have a strong base it makes everything else so much easier. Even now, even though I was at a higher ´level´of Spanish back in MN my Spanish is so much better even without the immersion aspect.
Every week our school has various activities. Last week one of those activities was a traditional cooking class. We made tortillas, and let me tell you, forming the perfect tortilla is not easy. There were definitely some ´creative´tortillas. Other activities with the school include organized futbol (soccer) games, movie nights, and different conferences over various interesting topics relative to Guatemala. It is nice to have different things every week. It keeps you busy when you are always learning and trying new things.
We had our first group excursion last weekend. We went to the colonial city of Antigua. Unfortunatly, I as well as a large portion of our group was sick. At least for me, I felt the best on Saturday which was the day we did the majority of the exploring. Antigua is a beautiful city with awesome ruins, but it made me glad that I am staying in Xela. While Antigua is a great city with a very interesting history, it is also full of turists. I especially noticed this on Sunday when I decided that the best thing for my stomach would be to sit in the central park and people watch all day. I saw a lot of interesting people from Antigua and all over the world. I saw two little boys tip over a garbage can and make that their new play-place. There were little boys that I swear had just learned how to talk that were trying to help their family by shining shoes and little girls in fancy dresses just getting out of church. I might have missed out on exploring the city, but I was very content watching everyone go by.
Finally yesterday I overcame my sickness. I celebrated by going to laguna de chikabal. To get to the laguna we climbed a mountain and then went down about 600 stairs. It was a nice hike around the laguna. It is a sacred Mayan area so nobody was allowed to go swim in it and there were various altars all around it. It was in a bit of a gorge so when a cloud would pass by it would spill over the mountain and into the laguna, we were literally on cloud 9. It was also vary gratifying because you could see the Santa Maria Volcano and it looked absolutely huge! I felt good for being able to say that I had climbed it all the way to the top. Although, that feeling was fairly short-lived, it may have been easy to go down 600 stairs but going up was a completely different story!
Last Tuesday we all had a break from class to watch the inaguration of President Obama. We were all squished into a little room. It was fun watching it with people from somewhere other than the United States. Someone even started a slow clap when Bush´s helicopter took off. All in all it was a very exciting day for everyone.
As for now, I think I might go explore a little more. Adios!
The next Saturday I took it pretty easy and relaxed for the majority of the day. I did this because at midnight a small group of us left school and headed toward the volcano named Santa Maria. After 4 1/2 hours of climbing we finally reached the top. The full moon was our main light source on the way up, the veiw of the city was absolutely amazing! Once we were at the top we enjoyed our hot chocolate while watching the sunrise over the mountains and watching a volcano errupt to the west. It was such and incredible and indescribable view! It was weird trekking down the mountain, in the light everything looked so different and unrecognizable. That was easily the most exciting thing I have done so far! Apparently the excitement really wore me down because I spent the next day and night sleeping.
One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is to wander around the city. I love exploring the city and meeting new people. One day I played tic-tac-toe with four little girls for about an hour! I also talked with a man that sells necklaces. He tried to teach me Spanish tongue-twisters, I wasn´t very good at them. Although, overall I feel a lot more comfident in my Spanish. We started our lessons at the very base of the language. It was so good for me to start so far back, when you have a strong base it makes everything else so much easier. Even now, even though I was at a higher ´level´of Spanish back in MN my Spanish is so much better even without the immersion aspect.
Every week our school has various activities. Last week one of those activities was a traditional cooking class. We made tortillas, and let me tell you, forming the perfect tortilla is not easy. There were definitely some ´creative´tortillas. Other activities with the school include organized futbol (soccer) games, movie nights, and different conferences over various interesting topics relative to Guatemala. It is nice to have different things every week. It keeps you busy when you are always learning and trying new things.
We had our first group excursion last weekend. We went to the colonial city of Antigua. Unfortunatly, I as well as a large portion of our group was sick. At least for me, I felt the best on Saturday which was the day we did the majority of the exploring. Antigua is a beautiful city with awesome ruins, but it made me glad that I am staying in Xela. While Antigua is a great city with a very interesting history, it is also full of turists. I especially noticed this on Sunday when I decided that the best thing for my stomach would be to sit in the central park and people watch all day. I saw a lot of interesting people from Antigua and all over the world. I saw two little boys tip over a garbage can and make that their new play-place. There were little boys that I swear had just learned how to talk that were trying to help their family by shining shoes and little girls in fancy dresses just getting out of church. I might have missed out on exploring the city, but I was very content watching everyone go by.
Finally yesterday I overcame my sickness. I celebrated by going to laguna de chikabal. To get to the laguna we climbed a mountain and then went down about 600 stairs. It was a nice hike around the laguna. It is a sacred Mayan area so nobody was allowed to go swim in it and there were various altars all around it. It was in a bit of a gorge so when a cloud would pass by it would spill over the mountain and into the laguna, we were literally on cloud 9. It was also vary gratifying because you could see the Santa Maria Volcano and it looked absolutely huge! I felt good for being able to say that I had climbed it all the way to the top. Although, that feeling was fairly short-lived, it may have been easy to go down 600 stairs but going up was a completely different story!
Last Tuesday we all had a break from class to watch the inaguration of President Obama. We were all squished into a little room. It was fun watching it with people from somewhere other than the United States. Someone even started a slow clap when Bush´s helicopter took off. All in all it was a very exciting day for everyone.
As for now, I think I might go explore a little more. Adios!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
¡Hola todas!
I am going to warn you now that I am not really going to be concerned with my spelling or grammer. The keyboards are not only slightly different, but they aren´t always what they say they are. The other day I couldn´t find the question mark for the longest time and finally I found it when I pressed the parenthesis button!
Anyway, the trip to Guatemala went well. There were about seven of us on my first flight and about 15 of us on the second flight. Our director picked us up in the airport in a big bus. The ride to Quetzaltenango (my city) was about 5 hours of winding roads through the mountains as the sun was setting ´Que bonita.´ When we got there my family picked me out right away because our pictures were on the wall in the school. My picture was when I was eating all the goodies at Theresa´s wedding... What a good first impression, eh?
I have a very nice family, I have a mom and a sister. My sister is my age and is very nice. She also has a boyfriend that is around quite a bit, and let me tell you, PDA is not a problem here! We have a pet chiuahua named bonbon who is very obnoxious but will sometimes be nice and sit on my lap. Our house is nice, my room is on the second floor and is plenty spacious. I am one of the few people who have hot water in their showers, I only have to light a pilot heater before I shower. I also live directly accross the road from the school, and that means I get to sleep in!
It is fairly cold during the morning and night, but is completely manageable (it is definately not
-30 like you guys!). The natives complain about it a lot more than we do. My school is nice, I have class outside in the courtyard. I sit at a table with my professor, Ingrid. I will have her for 3 weeks and then we will change. She is a good teacher, but she is pretty strict. That´s alright, it will whip me into shape! When I am spoken to I can understand basically everything, my problem is when others are speaking to each other they talk way too fast for me to comprehend. We have class 5 hours a day and we get a half hour break. During the break we go accross the street and get chocolate covered frozen bananas, pineapple, or strawberries for 2Q. (that´s less than a quarter). I get quite a bit of homework. Our directer had a conference with all of the teachers and basically told them that they need to assign us more homework than usual. All together I haven´t had any problems (knock on wood) everything has gone smoothly.
The other day a large group of us got together and climbed ´la muela´ it was a decent sized mountain. It was so pretty! We were way up above the clouds and towards the top it was more like rock climbing. I was very content that day! Don´t worry, I got some good pictures too.
Another day we went to las fuentes (fountains) georginas. They are natural hot springs within the mountains, it was very beautiful and fun. The other night we got a salsa dancing lesson, I only stayed for a little bit because I had a lot of homework to do. Other than that, I´ve just been exploring the city and adjusting to everything.
I hope all is well in Minnesota, stay warm!
1-8-09
Hasta luego,
Angela
I am going to warn you now that I am not really going to be concerned with my spelling or grammer. The keyboards are not only slightly different, but they aren´t always what they say they are. The other day I couldn´t find the question mark for the longest time and finally I found it when I pressed the parenthesis button!
Anyway, the trip to Guatemala went well. There were about seven of us on my first flight and about 15 of us on the second flight. Our director picked us up in the airport in a big bus. The ride to Quetzaltenango (my city) was about 5 hours of winding roads through the mountains as the sun was setting ´Que bonita.´ When we got there my family picked me out right away because our pictures were on the wall in the school. My picture was when I was eating all the goodies at Theresa´s wedding... What a good first impression, eh?
I have a very nice family, I have a mom and a sister. My sister is my age and is very nice. She also has a boyfriend that is around quite a bit, and let me tell you, PDA is not a problem here! We have a pet chiuahua named bonbon who is very obnoxious but will sometimes be nice and sit on my lap. Our house is nice, my room is on the second floor and is plenty spacious. I am one of the few people who have hot water in their showers, I only have to light a pilot heater before I shower. I also live directly accross the road from the school, and that means I get to sleep in!
It is fairly cold during the morning and night, but is completely manageable (it is definately not
-30 like you guys!). The natives complain about it a lot more than we do. My school is nice, I have class outside in the courtyard. I sit at a table with my professor, Ingrid. I will have her for 3 weeks and then we will change. She is a good teacher, but she is pretty strict. That´s alright, it will whip me into shape! When I am spoken to I can understand basically everything, my problem is when others are speaking to each other they talk way too fast for me to comprehend. We have class 5 hours a day and we get a half hour break. During the break we go accross the street and get chocolate covered frozen bananas, pineapple, or strawberries for 2Q. (that´s less than a quarter). I get quite a bit of homework. Our directer had a conference with all of the teachers and basically told them that they need to assign us more homework than usual. All together I haven´t had any problems (knock on wood) everything has gone smoothly.
The other day a large group of us got together and climbed ´la muela´ it was a decent sized mountain. It was so pretty! We were way up above the clouds and towards the top it was more like rock climbing. I was very content that day! Don´t worry, I got some good pictures too.
Another day we went to las fuentes (fountains) georginas. They are natural hot springs within the mountains, it was very beautiful and fun. The other night we got a salsa dancing lesson, I only stayed for a little bit because I had a lot of homework to do. Other than that, I´ve just been exploring the city and adjusting to everything.
I hope all is well in Minnesota, stay warm!
1-8-09
Hasta luego,
Angela
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