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Fresh from the Butcher
Hello everyone
Am having a fantastic time. Here's the story so far:
Staying with a lovely Guatemalan family in Antigua. Have a nice room - altho no mirror which is a pain as you can well imagine!
The house is massive, with the rooms centered around an open air courtyard. 3 generations of one family live in the house. Alicia is the oldest - about 90 yrs and is really witty and fun. And Maria is the house mummy. Her job is to cook, cook and more cooking. She is an incredible cook and am loving having fresh cooked breakfast each morning - pancakes American style, eggs etc... and then a yummy lunch which is the main meal of the day. In the evening - about 630 we have tea - which is always something light but filling like quiche and salad guate style.
The family are really health aware and always discuss - in Spanish of course - the health benefits of each of the meals. I have never eaten so many vegs and fruit in my life. I think I have really landed on my feet as not everyone's families are such good cooks -- lucky me.
Also I have a lovely room to myself and a hot shower everyday - hurrah!
In my house there are 2 other students - Mark from LA and Joanne from London who works in Farringdon just by leather lane! In fact the other English girl at Spanish school lives in Farringdon - such a small world!
Have got on with both of my house mates really well and also made heaps of friends at the school - of course!
Been out in Antigua every night and several time have been very drunk on vodka and Cuba Libres which if its 'ladies'night are only 8 pence each. If that didn't get cheap enough, on Tuesdays there's a club called Monolocos (crazymonkey) where drinks are 4pence and bottles of beer are free to all the ladeeeez. Guate beer, called el gallo, is not as good as Mexican beer but it does the trick!
As well as partying every night, I've also been to Spanish school 8am until 12.15. (- pls note Mel - that this is a school to learn Spanish and is not a school that the Guatemalan children attend. It's just for people wanting to learn Spanish. Everyone thought your email comments about whether the Guatamaltecan children were in classes alongside me were cute and funny!!). Spanish school is going well and the other students are really nice.
The school has free salsa lessons every Monday and Thursday which have been fun. I also went horse riding with the school around the town and the hills.
Antigua is so much more chic than I imagined, with photo opps at every turn. I love the cute cake shops the most, where everyone goes for a slice and some tea - it all feels very English.
On Thursday I climbed the Pacaya volcano which is still active. It was quite an easy climb to the top and really cool to see lava spurting from the crater which we were so near to. The fun part was half sliding half skiing down the black ash at the volcano peak to get down. The scariest part of the trip was not the lava, but the bus driver pulling out a gun from his pocket as we drove through a dodgy looking part of town - hmm. Everything was fine tho - which may have been because my family told me that they prayed for my safety the day I went to the volcano!
After climbing Pacaya, I stayed out all night at bars with some of the other Spanish school students and then at 4am we went on a school tour of Antigua's alfombras. These are elaborate carpets in the street made out of coloured sawdust or flowers and sometimes fruit and veg. The coloured sawdust alfombras are the most common and often depict religious symbolism or animals. After this, we waited for the start of the main Easter valaciones (processions). The procession started at 6am and hundreds of people came to watch the series of floats depicting the story of the crucifixion. As well as the floats there are hundreds of Guatemalans in purple (and later on in the weekend in Black) walking with the procession in a cloud of incense. I personally find the floats a bit gross but the procession was interesting to see. I am now officially processioned out, as I also saw many more over the Easter weekend.
For my own Easter celebrations, Jo (house mate) and I sneaked into the nicest hotel in Antigua and chilled out around the pool for all of Sunday. We then bought the family a lovely chocolate cake for Easter tea - yummy!
This is my last week in Antigua - sob sob. This weekend I'm off to Lago de Atitlan and Chici market - hurrah!
Love you all
Lindsx
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