Apr 2006

the pictures turned out well and i left the negatives to get copies made {1 copy cost 2 quetzales}. they will be something to remember that weekend by. i did watch a bit of TV and did some homework and went of to bed around 10pm.
didn´t sleep well at first i was too hot than i was too cold and woke up at 4.45am and an hour later and than every 15 minutes for no good reason. school wasn´t a big success today so we played memory with pictures and words on it and i had to always repeat the opposite of what was on the card so to practice my vocabulary, good huh'

this keyboard is the weirdest i had yet because i can´t use it the normal way although they are all in English. i can´t get it to write with caps and all the extra signs next to the numbers also don´t work.

after class i went home, had lunch and than wrote a bit and checked my email. i met some of the others for after school activity and today the program was go visit a macadamia farm. i got to meet some more students from the school in Antigua. the bus ride was wonderful when you all squeeze on a two seater with three people and the middle is completely blocked but the guy still tried to get through to collect the fare. the farm was interesting but since my mind wasn´t as clear as normal i understood like half of it. really don´t know what is going on but i am not sick. afterwards i managed to finally get the mobile activated now all i have to figure out is how to use it but i am sure that Chelsea is dying to do just that. time to head home now and check if all my wash is dry and how much that will cost. i want a shower and fresh clothes than it will be dinner time. we will go out tonight probably until the end but the good thing here is that all places close around 12.45-1am so you always know when you will be in bed if you stay til the end.

After I had written my entry yesterday it was time to go home. Being Sunday here means that students don't get any meals served only some families will put cornflakes on the table in the morning or if they have a family get together than we sometimes profit from it as well and get some sort of dinner. In our case we went to the local bakery and got some fresh bread and bought some juice. The thing is here that we drink lots of water and tea and that gets a bit boring after a while. Juice, smoothies or so are a real treat than! Some of us long here for sweets and they have different sorts here than we are used but they aren't bad. Chocolates as Camilla found out today aren't always so delicious since they have partly melted and than gone hard again and look really odd! Since Chelsea and me didn't have much sleep we decided not to go into Antigua but crashed into our beds around 9.15pm. Originally we were debating if should go for a poker game but decided that we will see everyone again Tuesday since locals and foreigners go out to " Monoloco" being ladies night. We needed our beauty sleep and wanted to be fresh for work and class.
I have a new teacher now called Carmen. The first two hours were fun and I had the feeling that I wasn't doing too bad. After the break though I had the feeling that the words were all in my mind but they just wouldn't come out right. By the time I came home for lunch I was beat. Now that we have changed to morning classes there are more people to chat with and new arrivals are also in between. One more German girl who is really nice called Susanne who arrived Friday and had no student in her family and therefore got dumped in the deep end. She had a kind of lonely weekend so she is with us right now and we show here what little information we have gathered so far. I had lunch and unwound in front of the TV. My family has got cable so we have all sort of channels like FOX, HBO and even a German channel. The funny thing is that on some channels you can switch the language from English to Spanish and vice versa. If you switch to English than you end up with Spanish undertitles which is really funny because they aren't even accurate. At 2pm we started walking from door to door to collect everyone. Here it is common that no one has door bells you just knock on the door or gates. In the bus we met some more students from our school and we went to Antigua together. We split up though since we all needed to do different things. Today is the first time that I actually bought anything. Found some earrings (had not taken any jewelery with me) and a little bag over the shoulder in which I put a pen, camera, money , house key etc. so far I have tried to always put things in pockets put only one pair of trousers can handle everything. I had to bring some film away for development an had a conversation about how much that costs and how long it takes to get developed. Gee, my words at first didn't want to come out but in the end it was okay. The same thing for asking prices for a SIM card and trying to find out what provider offers what. Seems that you can only text in Guatemala and than the only other consideration would be if you want to call the US since one seems to be cheaper. No we just want a phone to text friends or be called. I got around to change money so we aren't broke anymore since Chelsea and me help each other it. After Ema heard that we were close to being broke since we had missed the opening hours of the bank she also told us that we could borrow from her and pay her back the next day. Somehow all the others had disappeared so now I am with Bianca, Susanne and Tobias and guess what they are ll Germans - how boring! Once I am done here I need to buy a SIM card and get the film and buy a new one. No guys, don't worry no one has stolen my digital camera. Chelsea had forgotten hers one night in the bathroom of a bar and went back but it was already gone so she bought a real cheap one here. Now we are both curious how the pictures turn out. Tonight it is dinner at 7pm and than I want to have a look at my Spanish book and do my homework. Afterward maybe watch a bit TV, have a chat and go of to bed.

Seni, Du kannst mir auch emails hier schicken. Ich weisse Deine email Addresse leider nicht und habe sie auch nicht in meiner mailbox sitzen, aber ansonsten ist es claudia_boegel@yahoo.com! Du wirst lachen, aber ich hatte sogar auf meinem deutschen Handy gesehen, das jemand angerufen hatte, weil ich eine text hatte mit den Details, aber in dem ganzen Tumult ist es dann irgendwie untergehen, sorry!

Since the leaving drinks were over so early Chelsea and I slept in. I wanted to but her tuc tuc (like a 3 wheeled bicycle but with a motor and roof) driver showed up at 7.30am and made a racket under my window. I turned around again and emerged from my room somewhere around 9am. Chelsea was already up and watching TV. Ema and the rest of family were out and about. I had breakfast and than we both just chilled and watched TV. Later on we decided to take the bus to Antigua because we wanted to change money, book up a seat for the shuttle to the beach for the next day and a trip for the next weekend. We walked over the market and than in the street bumped again into her tuc tuc driver. He kept on babbling forever so we missed going to the bank since it was closed. Chelsea has been sick for a while and decided to get some medicine here. The pharmacy we were in was well stocked and she got what she needed. Isaak stayed with us and I wanted to go on on line so I did that and afterwards we sat in a patio and had a drink. So far the best smoothie ever and definitely worth the 20Q! I´ll be going back there. WE walked back to the bus stop and once back at home. Ema and Mario showed up from a visit with relatives. Mario and Milton went to church since it is the yearly Mormon meeting partly also in Jucotenango. Ema fixed us dinner and we had a little chat. Chelsea tried to call a friend no luck so since she had never gone out before on a Saturday and we only knew that it would be crowded we were debating if we should go yes or no. In the end it took us forever to find an empty tuc-tuc to get into town. We met a real fun crowd of 10 people and ended up sticking with them for various bars. The best part was that they couldn´t´t remember anymore where they had parked their car and the running joke is now ¨Dude where is my car?¨ They had come from the City just for the night. In the end it was Alex, Alex, Paulo and us two who headed for the City together. I would class where we are staying around middle class (mid section). The fact that this group was paying with credit cards, had been abroad frequently gave me an indication that they were well to do same goes for the car. Cars are a status symbol here! Chelsea and me only looked at each other once we saw the place from Alex - it was awesome! Chelsea didn´t sleep at all, while we all crashed for an hour of sleep more or less. Got to meet Alex´s brother as well Nikolas and his friend. Basically we had the music so loud that it woke them and we all had good laughs until 6am. Once we all were awake more or less and were dressed they took us to a restaurant to get some food since we had ransacked the fridge in the morning hours. They drove us back to Jocetenango. We all had forgotten that due to Eastern all the processions are going on and to get into Antigua was something that took forever. They dropped us off at our door step and we got the cell phone numbers to call. It might be interesting therefore to meet up again. Alex is a darling he gave us an old mobile of his and I will buy a SIM card tomorrow and than we are finally mobile since we didn´t have our home phone number with us to call Ema to tell her that we would be staying out over night. Alex speaks pretty good German as does Paulo and we had some good laughs!
Now I am freshly showered and had a change of clothes. When I get back to the house wonder if Chelsea managed to reach Enzo who owns her a dinner at his restaurant for being his good luck charm at poker o,) Would suit us perfectly since we are short cash in local currency!

Guatemala in general here in this area doesn´t even come close to what is described in on the web pages of the Foreign Ministry. People are very friendly and so far on one had a story to tell where anything had happened to them. I am glad that I am not blond since that means they get the whistles, cat calls and the 3 top questions here are what is your name, how old are you, got a boy-friend or such if yes than comes in that case we could be ¨amigos speciales¨ wand otherwise they just bug you. The climate is easy to adjust to and I have gotten already a bit of color. My stomach isn´t acting up and I am not sticking to everything 100% like brushing my teeth with bottled water e.g. For them the weather here is a really odd because it is really hot here during mid day and than at night it cools down (they get their heavy sweaters out, jackets; we tourists are mostly fine with a light blouse) and we already had our first rainy afternoon. That is for them very unusual since it isn´t winter yet! Here in Jocotenango I am finally getting my bearings since in the beginning the four colors made it kind of difficult to make sure were you are going since none of us look at street names. We get around by picking up landmarks o

We girls had a drink and than it was time again to start walking back to the bus stop. The buses here are such fun. If you would have a car you can travel the distance in 10 minutes but by bus since you just flag it when you want to hop on takes forever and you just hope that your calculation is right. I got home and Chelsea was already waiting for me and we had lunch together. Time to pack the books again and go off to school. Bianca came by to pick us up. She is still trying to find the right crowd to hang with. I don't really understand why she isn't hanging with the guys she lives with since there are also more students. Oh well, she is nice but we just don't click. Before the lessons we asked Vilma if we could change our classes to morning giving us more time to do fun stuff in the afternoon. I won't have Zeneida as teacher anymore but someone else but we are able to change. Perfect! During break time it is time to plan the evening or the weekend in this case. Camilla wanted to go out with her Norwegian crowd and Bianca went with her for all I know. Chelsea and me went past Heidi's place to check on the time we were supposed to meet for the bye-bye drinks from Wilda. We had 10 minutes to change and off we were to Antigua (left a note for our Mum so that she wouldn't prepare dinner for us). We met the other girls in the square and than went of to the restaurant. Camillo showed up briefly just pull the disappearing act on us later on. We had dinner and wanted to continue on to a bar with a table to fit a crowd of 7-8 people. We ended up in a former bar now lounge thing which wasn't ideal since we were all about to fall asleep. In the end we decided to just have one drink and move on. The crowd started splitting up since some had trips booked which had pick-up times like 3.30am so they went home. Chelsea and me decided to chill on Saturday and said we will continue on. Wilda, Heidi and the two of us went to "Monoloco" and bumped into some more guys there. One of them was the crazy American - we have still no idea what his name is but just sing " follow the leader, leader .." s an inside joke. Wilda was starting to get mad at her "brother" Chino for not showing. Camillo turned up again and said that Jaime had to got to the City to pick him up because his car had broken down. In the end the place closed don and we continued on to the after party place. That was a different experience. Open place and a make shift bar but lots of people and fires and grills ... was funny we got to chat with people and than Wilda got the call from Chino that they were outside ready to pick us up. We piled into the car - 2 passenger seat, 4 backseat! It was lots of bye-bye saying and by 1.30am I was to bed.
Time to run ...