the best of the best...

Admittedly...yesterday was appropriately titled ¨funk day¨I wasn´t interested in Spanish, I wasn´t interested in any more fucking black beans and I really couldn´t think about Guatemala for at least a few hours...culture shock maybe??

Today...much much better than yesterday. Last night, went to Tecun again with some friends from the B&B and had a few beers, some more beans (seriously...i could never say no to these things) and chatted about all things amazing in Central America and our lives back home. I´ve met some incredibly amazing and interesting people in the city and at the school, and have begun to think twice about my next steps. Originally, I had definitely planned to stay here for the 6 weeks and study and become acquainted with the language. After 4 days, I find myself, for the first time, feeling good about communicating and having conversations in Spanish. It´s in the present tense for 90% of it albeit, but we´re making our way!

As such, after 3 weeks, a tentative plan is to rent an apartment for approx. $13 per week here in Xela and use that as my base from which to travel from. I want to cut down some of my costs while I´m here and find it´s very expensive to stay with the school. Therefore, I also want to take a trip being offered here in Guatemala that would take 6 days and hike through las montanas and the volcanoes. We would end up in a small town somewhere (more information to come). As of right now, 6 of us are planning a week in Honduras and should be leaving about 3 weeks from now. The plan is to stay in the coastal town and take a ferry out to the island of Utila. There, we´ll rent a small place with a kitchen and make our food and bum on the beach. Not sure what or where I´m going after that! I know I have a return flight for July 23rd to make!

I have also discovered the most amazing woman across the street from the school. She sells chocolate covered EVERYTHING out of her home and it´s AMAZING for Q.2 (about 30 cents). I´m in love with her and her fruit. LOL. I had chocolate covered coconut...like a chunk of fresh coconut covered in chocolate...on a stick. Why are there none of these in AZ???

Um...today...for lunch I had a fish. I would like to say that I had like a piece of fish or a fish fillet, however, no. I had a FISH. I guess that´s how they do it here?! It was coated in something yummy and fried whole, at which point I had to peel away at it and eat. Good...but filling and kind of weird. Thinking I¨m going to stick with the black beans. Christina our cook said she would teach me how she makes them ..so so good. I mention the food a lot here only because literally everyday is something new and different and worth mentioning.

My teacher did not show today for classes. I´ve been informed that that´s really rare, however, they found me a new one. Where Jose went, I have no idea. As I said before, he´s a manager of a nightclub down the street. He told me last week he ended up in jail because he was out way past curfew here (no later than 1a.m. in the bars) and was sent. Maybe a repeat?? Ah well, truth be told, I loved my new teacher way way more today. In the span of 1 hour, I learned more and felt extremely comfortable. She was great! I requested to have her next week as well. We also had a guest speaker from the mountain regions who fled Guatemala 20 something years ago to escape the war, kidnapping and torture. She told her story of her return back to Guatemala. AMAZING. And it was translated...much easier to enjoy, lol.

Now, I´m off to watch a movie about I don´t what, but I´ve heard its good and it´s raining so I need to pass the time until cena! (dinner).

ciao for now...