Anniversary of 2 weeks

Tomorrow will be my two week anniversary of arriving in Gautemala. I have only been on my own for 9 days now and it has been wonderful. I have managed to find the best bagels (really, I am obsessed with Bagel Barn), Kolocheskis (a Texas breakfast item!!!...and I don't know how to spell that), how to lock a bathroom door properly (interesting fact: the lock is backwards. So to lock the door, the lock thingy goes parallel to the floor instead of perpendicular), chocolate churros, how to use my phone, how to walk to my work at least 10 different ways, how to ride my bike in the cobblestone streets, and the best cookie place in town. I really, really like to eat!! Soon I would like to try the Peruvian restaurant, the Thai restaurant, and the Sushi restaurant. Good thing I have found a friend that likes to eat as much as I do!! I also forgot to mention that in Antigua they have McDonalds, BK, Subway, and Domino's Pizza. (weird) My new friend is from PA and will be here in Guate for the next 6 months! I am pretty optimistic that we will find all sorts of delicious treats together.

In past ten days, I have worked 7 of them!!! It has been real easy and low stress, but I have been extremely tired. Today I finally took a nap...a four hour nap, it was lovely! This past week has been busy for me. It is funny to think about how I was wondering what I was going to do with my time...and now I don't have ANY free time. This is what my week has been:

Wednesday (June 30th): off
Thursday (July 1st): worked 8-12, 2-5pm
Friday (July 2nd): meeting from 10-12pm ( I didn't technically call this work)
Saturday (July 3rd): worked from 11-2pm
Sunday (July 4th): off
Monday (July 5th): Spanish class 10-12pm; worked 2-6pm
Tuesday (July 6th): Spanish class 10-12pm; worked 2-6pm
Wednesday (July 7th): Spanish class 10-12pm; worked 2-6pm
Thursday (July 8th): Spanish class 10-12pm; worked 2-6pm
Friday (Today): worked 8-12pm

I know right now looking at this, it really doesn't seem that bad, but let me walk you through it. I wake up around 7:15am, I have breakfast at 7:30am. After breakfast I get ready, plan for my english class, pack my bag, and maybe practice some spanish vocab - I leave my house at 9:25am. I arrive at my work (La Union) a little before 10am, because it takes me 20 minutes AT LEAST to walk there. I get one or two cups of coffee, have my lesson from 10-12. I walk back to my house, arrive around 12:30pm. I eat lunch at 12:45-1pm time (our cook is great!). I have a quick break and leave my house around 1:30pm to make sure I am at La Union before 2pm. I work from 2-6pm, then me and my friends walk home...I arrive around 6:30-6:45pm. Dinner has been prepared and left on the table for me to heat up and eat when I am ready. I do various activities in the evening, go to bed, and do it all over!

I have really been enjoying my days, but my mind is so full it wants to explode. I am learning 20-30 new words/verbs a day. I am trying to take in as much as I can, but by the end of the day I can't think. Most nights I spend talking with my housemates, watching Top Chef (which is in DC this season), practicing my spanish vocab, conjugating my verbs, planning for my english classes the following day, or out dancing because I need my brain to do nothing!!

The spanish classes are really helping though. I can already tell a difference from when I got here to now. I take class with my friend Zak (from Texas), whom is pretty good at spanish. He knows a lot of people here and speaks with them all the time, so I am learning a lot just having Zak in the room. He asks a lot of questions, and talks with our teacher - so I am catching new words left and right. Which I immediately have to write down or I will forget! My other friends speak english most of the time, but have lately been talking in spanish more to help me out. I really want to learn it fast, like in 3-4 months, so I spend all of my free time reading and studying, and asking questions. My new friend Vanessa came here with no knowledge of spanish and managed to learn it in 3 months. Granted she had an advantage bc her spanish classes were for 4 hours, and she lived with a family, and had Guatemalan friends - but....I still think I can do it!
Every time I am with my friends, and some of our other guate friends, I pick up new words, and really start to hear words. It takes a while for your ears to adjust to the language, especially others' accents. For example, in spanish the double ll sounds a lot like a y or j, and h is silent, d sounds like r or t, and j sounds like h.....it gets really confusing. But because I am around the same people, I am beginning to hear certain words they say over and over now! It is really fun practicing bc everyone messes up and the locals like it when you try.
None-the-less, my head wants to explode with all of this new vocab of another language.

Another interesting fact about Guate, is in regards to cell phones. I bought one when I arrived in Antigua for roughly 30 US dollars. It is not fancy, but I could care less, it is a phone. I was under the impression I would buy a phone, put on minutes and only use it in emergency. NOPE, not the case at all. I actually use it all of the time! There are three companies that you can purchase minutes (Saldo) from: Tigo - which I have, Claro!, or Monster (or something like that, I can't remember). What you do is you purchase Saldo, they give you card(s) with that amount of Q (Guate money) on them, then scratch off the phone number to text/call to get those Saldos on your phone. So think like you are scratching a lotto ticket. A lot of times they have great deals, like 3 for the price of one. So say I wanted 20 Q on my phone, I would pay for 20Q, but receive 60 Q. It is best to think of Qs as minutes...it is tough to explain through the internet. The catch is if you call on the day they are having a sale, it cost you X3 as much!! Here is the other great thing about their phones...incoming calls/texts don't cost you anything. For Tigo, when I call someone it cost my 1Q (8 Q=1 US dollar), when I text someone it costs me 1Q. When I call the US, supposedly it only costs me 1 or 2Q, but them nothing. I need to look into this further, but that was what I was told. Also, say I am out of minutes (Qs), someone can call me and I can answer, or they can text me and I will still receive it. This is all great, but here is the other catch...the minutes expire. So you can't buy 700 minutes and think you are set for months, because chances are they will expire over the next 30-45 days!!!!
I love learning all of the differences and trying to really understand them!

I will write more later about what the town looks like, what the hotels and gardens are like, and what else I have been doing with my free time (it isn't much!!)