unfettered

Saturday, June 17, 2006
Today I had originally planned on doing a 3-hour walking tour of Antigua recommended in the Lonely Planet. Instead, I decided to accompany one of my roommates, Ben to a nearby town called Pastores, known for its shoe stores - boots in particular. Ben was in the market for shoes and over the course of the week I had convinced myself that wherever leather shoes could be found, that leather handbags couldn’t be far behind. Where Ben referred to the name of the town by name, I just kept calling it the handbag factory in my optimism that there would be a huge selection of bags. I also convinced myself that if I did not find the selection to my liking, that they would custom make anything I asked for.

We had to take a local bus to this town, which was about a 20-minute ride. The local buses here are retired American school buses, often with colorful paint jobs and often named after women. I thought about the quality and comfort of the bus I used to take to school in 6th grade and imagined it to the point of deterioration where it is no longer suitable for shuttling public school children. Then I started to think that there was a slim chance the bus I was on could very well be my exact bus from the 6th grade. It wasn’t. Our bus still bore the name Mason County Schools on its side, not Fulton Public Schools. When it comes time to get off at your stop and you are seated near the back, they open the emergency back door and help you quickly jump out while the bus slows down, but never actually comes to a complete stop. It's not recommended to wear flip flops.

Oh, and unfortunately, I was completely wrong about the handbags. While I did help Ben select 2 really nice pairs of shoes (in black and brown) there was nothing for me to get excited over. On top of that, the smell of tannery leather combined with the exhaust from the constant stream of buses was a bit of an assault on the senses. Regardless of the handbag-free shops, the trip itself was interesting and made the outing worthwhile.


Sunday, June 18, 2006
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Although, Father’s Day is celebrated here on Saturday. Today is the religious holiday called Corpus Christi. I haven’t quite figured out why it is celebrated on different days in different towns throughout Guatemala and not necessarily on Sundays. I think it’s an excuse to have a parade and shoot fireworks; only they are not the fun, pretty kind. They are just loud like cars backfiring and go off at random times beginning at 6am and setting off car alarms up and down the street. Come to think of it, I have been hearing these small and startling explosions since I arrived so I find the whole Corpus Christi excuse rather thin. I think they just like blowing stuff up.


Tuesday, June 20, 2006
On Sunday we got a new roommate from Holland, who already moved out this morning. Her name is Esther and she’s a flight attendant for KLM. She’s only here for 2 weeks to brush up on her Spanish. She wanted to live in a nicer place I I would also like to live in a nicer space with more roof. I have spoken to the school about it and I think I'm moving into the same house this weekend. I hear they have a roofdeck, but I haven't seen it yet.

Today I went to a pilates class at my gym. When I was there the other day one of the girls who works there asked me to come to their pilates class because she was interested to get my feedback on it. Since I have never spoken to her before, I was flattered that she would approach me. The class was definitely different from what I am used to with little to no explanation of postural adjustments or muscle recruitment. But the instructor was a taskmaster and made all of us take turns counting out reps aloud for the class. I am really glad I can count to 30 in Spanish and while holding a crunch. That would have been embarrassing if I started counting numbers out of order. Overall, it was more like a Pilates inspired abs class and I got a great workout.

After class I met Noortje for lunch out because we were both dreaming of fruit salad and couldn’t deal with the possibility of one more lunch featuring white bread and overcooked vegetables. There are many restaurants around here that cater to tourists, so all the food is washed in purified water and thoroughly cleaned. You can get a huge fruit salad here for 17 Quetzales ($2.50), which is kind of pricey for Guatemala, but average for Antigua.

posted by Angie @ 12:52 PM