7 Countries Down - 1 To Go...

Another Retro Friendly Update here...So after the Portugal Wedding we
headed to Porto, Portugal to drink some Port. We've had steak in
Salsbury, UK, we've had Pisco Sours in Pisco, Peru - we must keep
the trend alive!

So we did. But I don't like Port. I thought it was supposed to be
like wine - I tried the white and the red - and neither tastes like
wine to me. This tastes more like a strong alcohol - and that's not
something I handle well. Jeff liked it, though, so we had to try it.
Porto was a cute little town with only 2 downfalls: 1. It is very
hilly and although I am a big fan of downhill, I do NOT love anything
that makes me walk uphill. 2. We were both just getting colds of some
sort (not swine flu) from having too much fun for 2 weeks straight.

Lucky for me they have what is called a Foonicular. I've never heard
of it (or maybe I have and my brain dumped the info long ago before I
started hating uphill and realized this would be a good bit of info to
have...). A Foonicular is basically a godsend for lazy people. It's
a cart on tracks that takes you up and down hills. SO worth it. So
we just had to try the Foonicular - and since we had to go up hill to
get back to our hotel it was really a win win situation. So Porto was
cute for 2 nights and then we were off again, this time via Ryanair
(the airline so cheap that they will soon charge for you to use their
bathrooms in the air) to Paris, France.

Now Paris was just ok. I know it's supposed to be the most beautiful
and romantic and all that, but it was just ok. We saw some catacombs
- which are really gross if you think about it - we payed money to
walk through caves with thousands of dead peoples bones piled neatly
all around us. But also interesting - and of course we visited Notre
Dame and a museum and the Eiffle Tower. Then comes the reaaaaally fun
part of France! We went to Tours! This is the town closest to
Vouvray - where my favoritest wine comes from!! We got to rent bikes
(and of course it rained) and go around to different vineyards and
drink Vouvray (in Vouvray - the trend continues). It was awesome and
fun (biking on flat land is doable even for me) and we bought 3
bottles of yummy wine. We dropped Rocko's business cards in case we
could get something more interesting but the tastings were already
free. I was THIS close to having Jeff speak only in French to the
vineyards and tell them he was Rocko and to call anytime...mua ha ha -
that would have been hysterical. But we didn't. Promise.

Portugal Weddings Rock!

This is going to be a Friendly Update in Retro. We barely had time to
think on this trip, let alone sit down and write friendly updates -
wah - so I'm going to do it all in now!

This wedding pulled out all the stops. First, Sarah Wild and Ruth had
a civil ceremony in London - where they live. Jeff and I flew over
after visiting the tall, tall Dutch and attended the ceremony and the
awesome mini reception after at a bar/restaurant. Lots of champagne
and other drinks - a good time had by all but mostly by our friend
Mara. She had a waaaaay good time. :)

Sarah Wild's surprise wedding gift to Ruth was to order a double
decker bus to pick us all up the following morning and take us to the
airport (about 12 of us) with champagne and bagels and our own music
selection. That was a bumpy but fantastic ride! We had a slight
snafoo at the airport when Jeff and I realized we booked our tickets
for the wrong date but a 10 minute run two terminals over led to
purchasing more useful tickets and getting to Portugal on time. D'oh.
But we made it. Thank goodness.

We got to stay in not one but TWO, count them on your left hand, TWO
castles! First we stayed at the "other" castle about 20 minutes from
the one the wedding was going to be held at. This one was a bit more
rustic but beautiful and had a dungeon (which we couldn't go in - sad
for me). Showers were a little tricky in that the hose went wild and
sprayed the entire bathroom - and I hear I'm not the only one that had
this problem.

Then we moved to the main castle (or Pousada as the Portugese call
them). This was more modern and our wedding had the run of the entire
place. It was kind of like a dorm where people just walked from room
to room, left their doors open and generally had a great time. The
wedding was out on the deck portion of the Pousada (see new pics on
Photobucket of the wedding) - and lucky for our side of the bridal
party - we got to stand in the shade! Ha! The poor girls in blue had
to stand in and look towards the sun. I don't know how they did it.
Our good friend, Maan, from Kenyon performed the ceremony and did an
amazing job. Then we had drinks and appetizers and then moved onto
the main meal in a nice dining hall. The place cards were fantastic -
they used a picture of you to mark your name and seat. Most were you
with one or both of the brides, or some were just super old and funny
pics of you. I loved seeing a random old picture of me and Sarah -
and I liked that she had one of her and Jeff from last year for him.

Dinner was followed by a dancing reception with great music and an ice
luge. That's right - a dolphin shaped ice luge. I had to bail around
1 am (because I do that and I got a beer spilled down my dress by a
magician). But the party went on until 5 am. I don't know how people
do that and still get up for breakfast in the morning. All in all it
was a blast and then Jeff and I headed to Porto. More retro updating
on that in a bit...

The Tall Tall Dutch

Oh did we have fun in Holland. Rotterdam is a beautiful city with
super fun people - at least 2 anyway. We visited our friends who we
had met in Honduras earlier this year and they showed us their
hometown of Rotterdam. It was fantastic. We went to a comedy show
where the first girl on stage was a comedian from Evanston, IL -
strange coincidence.

Then we rode some bikes through a park to the museum in the middle - a
museum which has more Van Gogh paintings than even the Van Gogh museum
in Amsterdam. It was an awesome ride even if my butt hurt later and
we got rained on a lot.

Jeff was excited to eat Rice Tafel - some sort of thing you do when in
Holland per Jeff's family but it really turned out to be chinese food.
It was good, though.

We also ate the traditional food of the Dutch called bitter balls.
They were deep fried balls something yummy with some spicey mustard on
the side. YUM.

Lastly on the yummy food list was the last night we were there when
our friends cooked us a meal of mashed potatoes with endive and gravy
with sausage and bacon on the side. Goodness it was hearty but oh was
it good.

No, Rocko, I am not yet 400 pounds. But I'm getting hungry again just
writing about all this food. Next we were off to London and Portugal
for the two wedding ceremonies of my best friend Sarah Wild. But that
deserves it's own friendly update...

Here we go again!

We have already had a whirlwind of a European tour! So far we have
been here a week and covered 3 countries. So I've had a lot of time
to catch up on sleeping on the many train rides we've taken and I can
say finally, I am over the jetlag (it wasn't pretty).

We started in Nuremburg, Germany where Jeff's distant cousins live.
We stayed with Kurt and Birgitte who were super nice and have a
beautiful apartment full of art. They were super generous and fed us
a LOT. Which I loved, but a girl can only consume so much. I
absolutely love me some German food! Brats and schnitzel and steaks
and potatoes! I heart here. Once, and not the last time, Birgitte
forgot I don't speak ANY German and just kept talking to me and Jeff
also forgot so I just nodded and smiled. He seems to forget a lot
that I have no idea what people are saying.

We also visited Jeff's grandma's cousin Paula - who loves snickers
bars. We had coffee and dessert at her house and I have to tell you,
I have no interest in having a garden but I love everyone's gardens
here. Her house and garden were beautiful. We also picked up Jeff's
Chicago cousin, Joann, and brought her along for the next two
countries.

Then we went off to Vienna, Austria to visit Jeff's friends Rene and
Frank. I loved it there! Vienna is a neat city but more importantly
Rene and Frank live in the best house EVER and it's about 100 feet
from a vineyard-restaurant (one of 16 in their neighborhood). Schmidt
is my new (and only) most favoritest Austrian wine producer. I'm also
contracting Frank to decorate and landscape my house if I ever have
one. He has done the most amazing job on their house and yard - and
we had the best time. Like Nuremburg, we toured Vienna and got a feel
for what a cool city it is. Plus here we got to eat lots of ice
cream. mmmmmm. We went to the summer palace of the old royalty and
saw a show on how apple strudel is made! Struuuudel! They even gave
us a little piece to eat. Again, Jeff forgot I don't know German and
kept looking at me during the German part of the show and laughing -
like I understand their jokes. Nope.

After that we visited Jeff's old TA from college, Jasmin, in Bern,
Switzerland. Although not a super happening town, Jasmin still gave
us a great tour and she can cook some good potatoes. We saw why Bern
got it's name (from an old king who killed a bear), shopped around but
bought nothing (waaaay too pricey for Joann and I), and brought along
some yummy Schmidt wine to share.

Now we're relaxing in Hanover with Jeff's old friend Mark. Mark has a
son named Tom who is hysterical. He keeps talking to me in German so
I just speak right back in English and nothing gets done - but we
still have a good time. Jeff is now able to identify the look I give
him that says, 'now is when you translate for me...'. Tomorrow we're
off to Holland to visit our favorite, and most tall Dutch friends -
and the whirlwind continues. More to come - more frequently too,
hopefully.

Chi-Town

I forgot to let everyone know that we're home in Chicago! We've been
here for 3 weeks and have 3 to go before our next adventure to Europe.
It's been a whirlwind so far - seeing friends, family, moving into
our sublet, going to weddings, shopping (this has not happened
enough), etc.

We went to Peoria for Jeff's cousin's wedding and it was great. There
I also found my wedding coordinator - another of Jeff's cousins -
Jimmy. Together Jeff, Jimmy and I will make my wedding rock. It will
be sometime in 2010 - other than that I have no idea about any of it.
Except maybe I'll get Chipoodles to cater. YUM. Yummiest wedding
EVER. Jeff, Jimmy and I had a good time at this wedding reception and
hit the dance floor quite a few times - Jeff and Jimmy especially.

After the wedding we went to St. Louis to visit Jeff's brother and his
family and my brother came through town with his babies so it was a
meeting of the babies. Jeff's brother has 4 kids all the same age as
my brother's 4 kids so it was fun to have them meet and hang out.
Then we caravaned with my brother and his family to KC to visit some
more of my relatives. Here's a picture of all the cousins that were
there. We all got together to celebrate my cousin Danny's birthday -
he turned 18. I'm glad we got to hang out with him - I haven't seen
him in a long time and he's a great guy.

Now we're back in Chicago and being uber social per usual. We need to
crack down and start looking for jobs but being that we're super lazy
we may put that off a bit. Just a bit longer...

Back to Lima

I didn´t think it´d happen but we´re actually excited to be back in
Lima! I´m digging the sea level, the fog, the warmth - and the food!
Our hostel is super clean and new, too - so that helps. We´ve got
just a few more days before we´re back in Chicago and although I´m sad
to stop our South American adventures, I´m pretty pumped to get home
and see everyone...and eat Chipoodles.

We´ll be in Chicago for a month and then we´re off to Europe for a
month so more blo----friendly updates and pictures in July.

For now we´re taking Lima at a sloooooow pace - catching up on
reading, relaxing and doing as little as possible each day. I´m just
getting over a cold and it´s a nice excuse to be ridiculously lazy.
We just posted our pics of Colca Canyon and Arequipa - including our
double decker bus tour of the city.

Colca Canyon was supposed to be a bit more amazing - but it turns out
it´s just a sickeningly early journey to see some big birds from kinda
far away with a billion other people. A bit too pricey for what it
is. However, on the way we got to hold and pet some big eagles and
MAN OH MAN was that awesome. Just beautiful. Also Jeff got to pet
what may be the cutest baby Alpaca on the planet.

We didn´t exactly want to take a night bus back here to Lima but ended
up being forced into it since that´s all the options any bus lines
had. And just when we met some bruised and limping gals who got in a
night bus crash. Fantastic - really instilled confidence in me the
whole time. We made it in one piece, though and Lima´s been good to
us so far. Off to a book exchange and maybe we´ll catch a movie
(preferably in English) - it´s Tuesday! The cheapest day at the
movies! (that´s right - the prices vary depending on the day -
strange, eh?)

See you Chicago people on Friday!

Llama Drama

So we go spit on by a llama. And I had just asked a girl the other
day who works with textiles and has seen a ton of llamas and alpacas
and I asked - aren´t they like camels and they spit a lot? No, no,
she says, not unless you´re cutting off their fur or really pissing
them off - they are generally very calm.

Well just our luck, on our city tour of Arequipa yesterday we came
across a mini zoo of llamas and alpacas at an ¨outlet¨ of wool
sweaters and clothes (don´t get excited like I did, it wasn´t the
discount outlet store I was hoping for but it was a nice store).
Anyway, our tour group had a few younger brits in it who thought
banging on the fence of a nice, serene looking llama thing with big
doe eyes would make him pose better for pics. He was SO serene when I
was taking pics, then I turn around to look at other things, jeff
walks by and it all happens at once! I hear a hissing and a spitting
noise and I have chewed up grass on me (thank goodness for
sunglasses). I start cowering and Jeff starts laughing - him being
the tallest one with sunglasses and a hat I guess made him the next
target because he got spit on like 3 times and if I wasn´t so shocked
at what was happening I would have gotten better action shots - but I
just stood there. Hysterical - and kinda gross.

The tour was pretty neat since we got to sit on the top of a double decker. We saw some beautiful landscapes, some guinea pigs (poor things were probably dinner, but they make cute noises when alive), a tour I refused to climb up because just the stairs to get to it were tiring (I really may be dying I´m acting so old these days), some mangy dogs on roofs (hahahha), AND we got to stay on the tour for 2 extra hours because they messed up our tickets. We tried to get off the bus and they said get back on and so we did and THEN they figured our their mistake. Too late - more tour for us. Ha! Except it was freezing at night on the top of the double decker. Oh well - it´s like 2 for 1!

Let´s see - so that´s us in Arequipa. Tomorrow we´re going to see the
condors in Colca Canyon - those would be the largest birds in the
world! Fantastic! Too bad our camera sucks, but it´ll do. There´s a
two day option where they take you down to the bottom of the canyon to
sleep with no electricity or heat, and then they make you walk back
out of the canyon...no thank. We opted for the 1 day tour of just
seeing the big birds. After Machu Picchu and having a nasty cold
right now and me not wanting to pay to hire a donkey to carry me out
of the canyon (which is an awesome option - but I´m afraid it´d stink)
- we decided that one day of just bussing back and forth is enough.

Before Arequipa we were in Lake Titicaca! It was hysterical. We
stayed in Puno, which is the Peruvian town on the shores of Lake
Titicaca and we visited the floating reed islands on the lake called
Islas Uros. They are strange to stand on but huge and neat and I
can´t believe people made them and live there - and for a long time
too. We also visited a small town of Chuchuito down the road from
Puno which had a fertility garden - very inappropriate and hysterical
little garden we payed 5 soles to get into. Other than that and
getting colds (Titicaca was the highest altitude we´ve been so far),
we really didn´t do much since we were so under the weather.

Two more days here and then off to Lima again! We´ll be home before
you know it!

2 of 400!!

That´s right - with an incredibly early start we were able to be 2 of
the 400 allowed each day to climb Huana Picchu (which is the large
peek you see just beyond Machu Picchu in all the pictures and has
ruins of it´s own but a STEEP walk to get there). It´s also spelled
about 10 different ways depending on what sign you read within the
site. This picture is us at the top - we´re talking the top of a mountain - a steep mountain - with zero safety features and people (like the fine individuals behind us) are just climbing all around with no regard for their safety. AH!!

And when I said ¨allowed¨ I mean we were idiot enough to be excited
about it at first. Jeff was fine, I was DYING the whole time. I
don´t know if it was the altitude or the lack of shape my body is in
or being up early but I had to stop every 10 or 15 feet to catch my
breath and try not to faint and fall over the edge of the mountain.
This hike was crazy talk.

However, the top was beautiful and all our pictures look kinda fake.
Postcard fake. After Huana Picchu, with my legs shaking from the
effort, we climbed back down to Machu Picchu and had a look around
those ruins which are also amazing. No, we did not do the Incan
trail. For starters, we are really lazy people. Also, my friend -
whom I shall not name but you know who you are - said that she got a
bug in her head when she did it. NEVER.

I have a few goals in life and one of them happens to be to never let
anything nest within my head. Gotta have goals, gotta have goals.

Anyway we have about a billion pictures up on photobucket of all this
along with some other things we´ve done since that day (which was 2
days ago and my calves are still sore).

We´ve checked out the amazing salt flats-salinas-salt pools, whatever
they are called. You drive off into the mountain area near Urubamba
and all of the sudden you´re looking down over a cliff towards
hundreds (literally) of pools of salt being produced. The pictures
are awesome and the view was incredible. We got to walk around them a
bit - careful not to fall in one or step in any of it - and then we
were off to Moray.

Moray is a big ol´hole in the ground made of a ton of terraces set up
in concentric circles that the Incas used to test out
farming-agriculture. It´s HUGE - a lot bigger than we expected and
since I was still in sad shape from MP, I made Jeff climb down to the
bottom all by his lonesome but that made for some good photo ops of
him down there.

We´re back in Cusco now and tomorrow we´re headed out to Lake Titicaca
to check out the floating islands and all that the area has to offer.

Sacred Valley

So we´ve now been through the Sacred Valley - and really, who needs toilet seats, anyway? We started in Pisac for
the popular Market they have there. It supposedly is only on
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays but we were there for a few days and
it was every day. Nice market, cute town and we got to see some of
Pisac´s ruins. We didn´t realize how expensive it would be (even
though our crappy book told us) so we ended up buying the big pass
that gets you into about 15 places around the Sacred Valley and now we
really have some sights to see. We have to see them, we´ve already
paid for it!

They were big ruins and took about 2 hours to get through with a lot
of walking up and down. We met a nice girl from Venezuela on the way
there and shared a taxi with her and she kept saying thank goodness
she met us because she would have been lost in the ruins without us.
We were lost too, but three people finding their way is more
comforting I guess. They usually have blue arrows to guide you but
sometimes they just let you kinda feel your way out - not so awesome.

After Pisac we headed for Ollantaytambo (Oh-yawn-tay-tambo) where we
stayed one night and saw THEIR ruins. There are ruins everywhere.
Also quite the hike uphill and this time we were joined by a billion
tour groups - which are a pain to get around on tiny trails when one
side is just a drop off to a long fall below. But we got to see some
beautiful scenery up there and although our camera died about 10
minutes into it, we posted as much as we could on Photobucket!

Now we´re in Aguas Calientes - which is the town closest to Machu
Picchu. We plan to get up around 430 am to head over to MP and
hopefully (cross your fingers) be 2 of the 400 people allowed each day
to see Hyuana Picchu - the highest part that´s supposed to be amazing,
although not for the faint of heart. I guess the climb up to it is
steep and you hang onto a rope most of the time. And it takes and
hour and a half. Sa-weet. Hopefully our out of shape bodies can
handle it. We´ve got to run into MP, find the area where you sign up
and then wait in some line. Sounds complicated but I think we can
manage. I hope. So after today we´ll have pictures of the infamous
Machu Picchu! Woohoo!

As some of you know we´ll also be heading home soon for a bit. We´ll
be back in Chicago for the month of June and then gone again for
another month visiting friends and family in Europe - specifically for
Sarah Wild´s wedding but we´re tacking on some other fun excursions.
So after Machu Picchu we have to start booking it through the rest of
Peru we want to see before it´s time to head home! Lots to do!

We survived!

Not that I became a paranoid worry-wart or anything but our ride on
the little plane in the foreign country over a desert had me a tad
concerned...maybe. But we survived and saw the awesome Nasca Lines
(pics up on photobucket). It was really amazing to see and then we
got out of dodge. Nasca was a cute little town but besides the lines
there´s not much going on.

We are now in Cuzco and will be making our way slowly through the
Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu. Slowly because this altitude is
killer. I´m feeling ok but I´m taking high altitude sickness pills.
Jeff´s feeling better now but it was rough on him at first. We both
get pretty out of breath if we walk our normal long legged speed so
we´ve slowed it down a lot and taken the day slowly. Cuzco is a very
nice and big town, but we´re leaving it tomorrow for Pisac to go to
the Market which is supposed to be just fantastic.

Today an older lady approached me and offered for me to pay her to
take a picture of her and the baby goat in her hand. Nice offer and
really cute goat, but I declined. The shop owners and spa places are
pushy per usual about wanting you to use their services and I´ve said
¨No gracias¨ about one billion times today alone. It´s funny after
when they then say, ¨maybe later!¨ Oh sure, count on it, buddy.

This is definetly a country for shorter people than we. Jeff has hit
his head so many times he may kill someone - poor guy. We met a nice
guy from Chicago and he said he´s done the same thing. Wish Jeff and
the Chicago guy luck - they need it. Off to the Sacred Valley!!

Peru Part II: Darn Earthquake

On August 15th, 2007, while I was enjoying a fabulous day of self pampering per usual on my birthday (probably included chipoodles, starbucks, taco bell, etc.) - a big, huge earthquake hit the town of Pisco, Peru hard and the surrounding region of Ica pretty hard. Sadly our stinking book, Moon, was published that same year so it has no knowledge of the earthquake and half the stuff we've been thinking of seeing is now gone - people explaining that it collapsed in the quake. Muy triste! And yes, we're still looking at the Moon book even though we hate it - it's our only guide!

Without knowing all that about the quake, we headed from Lima to Pisco to check out the nearby national reserve of Paracas and it's many wild animals and also to drink the local Pisco Sours - not really given the name from this exact town but we had steaks in Salsbury in the UK so why not keep the trend alive? Plus Jeff likes the sours when they are nice and cold - and I continue to find them revolting.

Pisco sucked. Probably not it's fault, but the place is in shambles and the hostel we were hoping to stay at was lost in the quake. Plan B - let some sleazy salesmen lead us to a different hotel and give us a "good deal for his friends" and stay there two nights. He was kinda annoying and at one point I finally had to tell him to leave because I needed him gone so he said he'd see us downstairs in the lobby to talk about tours later. Looking forward to it. Plan B also included letting him give us a decent price on a tour of Paracas the next day. We only had to waste time until the next morning when our tour left - which is more difficult than you might think in a town reduced to nearly nothing and barely rebuilding itself. Plus we were told numerous times to only stick to the square since the surrounding area wasn't safe. Needless to say, Pisco does not rank high on my favorites of Peru.

Paracas, however, was great! We saw tons of sea lions, a billion and a half birds (including the Peruvian Boobie), Humbolt Penguins (endangered but oh so cute), dolphins!!, and condors (yes, that could have been placed under birds but it was cool anyway). We took a boat tour from Paracas to the Islas Ballestas to see all that wild life (except the condors, that's later) and on the way we saw a huge symbol on the side of a sand dune called Candelabra - an ancient symbol they know nothing about. Just like Stonehenge. They think that maybe, sort of, kind of, perhaps, that school children in ancient BC times or maybe sailors, or who knows.

After the boat ride we toured the desert and learned more about Paracas being a protected area and saw some absolutely beautiful scenes of ocean and desert. Their other pride and joy - the "Cathedral" was a rock formation like a bridge into the water. Sadly, that bridge portion was also lost in the quake. Stinking quake. They still took us to look at it (and made us pay 5 soles) and the view was great. This is also where we saw big condors flying overhead - we'll see bigger in a few weeks in Colca Canyon so don't mind the not so awesome pictures. I'm working on it.

Now we're in Ica and we toured some wineries and bodegas today - and tasted many kinds of wine and pisco sours. I stopped after my first drop of Pisco (stopped the hard stuff, kept trying the wines) because I thought it would be rude to boot all over the kind tour guide's tables. That stuff is potent! They showed us all about how they make wine and pisco and were very kind and finally spoke slow Spanish for us when we pointed out we could understand them if only they'd speak up and slow it down a notch. They speak FAST here and quietly so it helps if they speak up. Plus they speak more castellano here than the espanol from Central America we're used to so words are different (it's more like Spain Spanish here). Interesting.

Tomorrow we're off to see the Nasca Lines - now those will be amazing. You just wait and see the pics I'm going to take! Oh yes!

Peru Part I - Escape from Lima

This has proved interesting. Side note: being home in the US of A was great but alas, I can say no more. As Sarah Wild reminded us all via a fabulously designed shirt - what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas (unless I suppose you have a facebook account, but I do not go there).

Lima was a big city - like any other town with museums, theatres, beach front, starbucks, taxis that won´t take no for an answer and tons of people (tourist and local). I really liked parts of it - like us staying one block away from the amazing and beautiful coast - but they sure don´t make it easy to leave. No one knows the bus stop schedules and they weren´t anywhere stations near us in order to just walk to and see. Plus everyone speaks SUPER fast here and they aren´t exactly the friendly small town type we´re used to from Central America so it´s been different. So out of laziness and frustration we stayed for almost a week but had a good time.

The local beers are Cristal (not like Rocko´s Cristal - and certainly not as good), Brahma (not to be confused with Brahva even if the labels are identical) and Cusquena. I, of course, dig the cheapest tasting Brahma and Cristal over the Cusquena. They are also known in Peru for the many different potato varieties - OH YEAH! Who loves meat and potatoes? I do!!

Another Peruvian thang is the Pisco Sour - a drink with hard alcohol that I don´t touch but Jeff enjoys. We strayed from the norm and had sangria one night but chose the house ¨wine¨ which I´m pretty sure was straight vinegar so don´t follow our lead. Ugh. We also have a sinking feeling the ¨napkins¨ on the table were just toilet paper, but whatever. Sadly, no mangy dogs up in Lima. Boo on that.

We decided to hit the beach one evening after we´d walked FOREVER that day but it was worth it because as Jeff pointed out these were stars we´ve never seen before. How cool is that?! Cool! Even if I didn´t recognize them (next thing on my list, look up constellations here.)

Not surprisingly, bugs still find me delicious. This time on my face so it looks like I´ve been in a nasty fight in just two places. But what are you going to do? I´m delicious!! Let´s see...other than cool locks on all chairs to ensure your bag isn´t stollen, a cafe named Zeta that they claim was ¨straight out of Chicago¨ (no idea why) and some of the thickest fog, I guess that´s it for Lima. We finally figured out how to get on out and headed for Paracas to see some wild life and then who knows! We have ideas, of course, but we´re not consulting the Moon Book (a crap version of Lonely Planet) anymore. Poo on Moon! Woohoo to Peru!

The Sunshine State

Greetings from the US of A! It's nice to be home, but it was sad to leave Central America. No worries - in a week and a half we'll be off to Peru to start our South American tour. So far, though, Florida has been tons of fun.

We started off in Orlando by helping out with and attending Jake and Karin's wedding - Jake's an old friend of Jeff's from Chicago. It was a beautiful wedding and I just had to buy shoes for it so all in all it was a great experience. Jeff got to help Jake out with the fireworks display - and we're talking big fireworks. The kind I didn't know you could do yourself from home. They wired up an 89 firework show and it was a huge hit with the wedding crowd (not so much with the neighbors).

After the wedding (the next day) we went to a water park - which I haven't done since I lived in AZ. It was fun but a little chilly out for all that water. There was one awesome ride called the Brain Wash but it was more like a toilet bowl you got flushed down - very disorienting and way fun. By far the best ride!

Now we're in Fort Lauderdale and have done some strange and awesome things like go to the Everglades and a Pig Roast. The Everglades were fantastic but scary due to all the ALLIGATORS. Check out the pics - we saw one in the wild and it came straight for our boat - straight for ME. Where I was sitting anyway. But the nice tour guide said he was there to stop it from jumping in our boat. Nice of him. Then as we walked around the other exhibits I read this dandy little sign that said "be careful of other gators in the area as they are not part of this park and are wild animals" - and we SAW ONE! I nearly peed my pants but everyone else seemed to find it fascinating. It's all fun and games tell he's after you and you have to run in a zig zag motion to get away.

The pig roast was ok - I actually opted for a burger - but the people watching at the pig roast was phenomenal. These Floridians - or people that visit - sure are fascinating to watch. Oh and! To support my girls in Chicago - we took a day trip to South Beach - I may not diet with my girls, but I'll visit the homeland of the diet - and have pizza and a coke.

I'm off today for Arizona&Vegas and Jeff leaves on Friday for Puerto Rico. I'm sure we'll have interesting pictures after this coming weekend!

ALL INCLUSIVE!!

Oh yeah - Jeff and I lived it up Spring Break 2009 style for our last few nights in Latin America.  We stayed at an All Inclusive resort in Cancun and had a great time (even though we're not the best at taking advantage of all of the all inclusiveness - we tried!).  It was still great and a nice way to finish off the first leg of our trip. 

 

Way too many lizards in Cancun - and I'm not talking small ones - I'm talking 3 foot long big boys who just sit there on the sidewalk while you walk.  When you finally see them at 10 feet away and squeal like a scared piggy (not that I did the, but I did) they just slither on under the sidewalk so now you can't even see them but you know they are there.  Creepy!!  None on the resort, thank goodness.

 

After those two fantastic days we flew to Florida and are helping Jeff's friends Jake and Karin get ready for their wedding tomorrow.  First things first - we went to Chipoodles last night right after getting in and yes - it is still the most glorious of burritos.  Don't say "how can you say that when you were just in Mexico having authentic food" because it's different.  Chipoodles isn't about Mexican food.  Chipoodles is about the yumminess that is Chipoo-poo.  Plain and deliciously simple. 

 

I heart America and am glad to be back but also excited about our next adventure to South America.  First, however, we must visit with some friends in Florida and then part ways - Me to Arizona&Vegas and Jeff to Puerto Rico.  After that we'll meet up in Peru and start again.  Wish me luck in Vegas - I'm not exactly the stay out late type.

Cenote of SACRIFICE!!

We´re still in Merida and took a trip yesterday to the nearby Chichen Itza! The most visited Mayan ruins in Central America. And yes, there were thousands of people there - blah. Lots of hippies too because this is the Equinox time which is when the shadow on the main temple creates the body portion of the snake which connects to the head at the foot of the stairs. Very interesting. Actually it was neat looking but not worth all the clapping and rushing forward the New Age people kept doing - it´s just a nifty shadow.

But the site itself was amazing. It´s a younger site than the others we´ve visited like Tikal and Copan so the carvings are still preserved and we could actually make out a lot of them. They are big on skulls here - walls upon walls of them. They also have the Cenote of Sacrifice! AH!!! It´s a cenote (not one I would swim in like the last time) where they dredged it and found a bunch of sacrificial remains. Gross.

They also had a really nice ball court where the Maya used to play whatever that ball game is (this one is different from the other sites as the hoops are too small to fit a ball through just using your hips). But they did show a carving of a ball with a skull in it and archaeologists believe they may have actually used rubber balls with skulls in them. COOL. Just like that one movie Mystery Men. Except way cooler. Of course, like Anna said, archaeologists just make stuff up so who knows. Hahahaha, I keeed. Kind of.

Tomorrow we´re really hitting up Uxmal (ooosh mall). Unlike last time we were in Merida when we got lazy and decided not to - we´re really going there this time. You´ll see!

Tortugas!

Jeff and I went diving together today for the first time - SO FUN!  Actually, our instructor mentioned that we sure looked like we were having a good time together and I'm not sure if she was chiding us or not.  We did silly things like underwater kiss and cupcake and tried to use sign language to communicate but mostly just swam around like goons.  We got to see a bunch of sea turtles!  They were beautiful and big.  We also saw some big old grouper fish (just really big fish) and supposedly an eel but the current was whisking me along too fast for me to stop and see that one.

 

What I really wanted was a harpoon gun.  Just in case - you know?  What if sharks attacked?  One of the instructors (the not fun one) cut her finger right before we got in the water.  Thanks alot - why don't you bleed everywhere and attrack predators!?  See?  She was not fun.  But if I had a harpoon gun then all would be well.  No one seems to sell them here but I'll keep trying.  It would go nicely with my machete - if I ever get one of those either.

 

So we haven't had a lot to update about since we've been just relaxing, going to the beach and reading a lot.  I'm all different shades of pale right now from extremely pale to really pale to almost pigmented - and I'm working on evening it all out.  A few fun things we have encountered on our relaxing days are:

 

1. The best idea for dishes EVER.  They wrap the dishes (at oh so awesome restaurants) in plastic bags - like mini trash bags - that way your food doesn't actually touch the plate and presto!  No dishes to be done.  Genius.  Or genious as some would say.  You know who you are.

 

2. Starbucks.  It's great for many reasons (the obvouis being that it's yummy and has chai tea - mmmm) but also because they have soap in the bathrooms and the Xcelorator!  That is the coolest freaking hand drying device on the PLANET.  I'm easily amused.

 

3. Store clerks.  Or really, the guys trying to get you to come into their tiny booths/shops/tiendas.  Some are funny - like when they say "i have what you neeeeeed", "almost free", "no cover charge today" and "duuuude".  But some are just plain obnoxious and rude - one of which I almost pummeled yesterday but Jeff held me back as I glared at him and he said "yeah - you!"  Oh a harpoon gun would be nice.

 

4.  Pizza and Champagne.  Is that not a combination to die for?  This restaurant posts ads everywhere but for a while all I could find was the promise of said pizza and champagne and no address.  But we finally found it and oh yes - it was glorious.

 

Tonight we are off to a restaurant called "Karen's" which is sure to be the best food in town.  For the next few days I'm going to focus all my efforts on figuring out how to have the best darn St. Patty's Day while down here.  I don't know what they do to celebrate it here but I'm sure going to find out.  I'll need to buy something green to wear for starters.  Hooray for shopping!

 

 

DiveMaster KO

Ok, I'm not a divemaster - but I am now certified as an Open Water Scuba Diver. FUN! I've gotten to see a barracuda, a blow fish, and a HUGE sting ray. My instructor didn't see him at first and I let out a little underwater yelp and then the thing went gliding away. Neat but I like it better when I see them on the discovery channel and there's no chance I'll get Steve Irwined.

I also had to do an awesome swim test where I went out into the ocean and was supposed to swim back and forth between two ropes that lead out into the ocean. It didn't work so hot because in my swimming from the first to the second I didn't notice that I overshot the second one by FAR and just kept swimming. Took me a while to figure it out and by the time I did I was exhausted and thought I'd fail at the swim test - but it turns out I did more than needed so I'm good to go.

We're in Playa del Carmen and Jeff and I are going to do a fun dive together in a few days when his cold is gone. For now, I'm working on getting pigment and I treated myself to a DQ Blizzard (oh yeah they have that!) for passing my scuba exam. Go me. I'm tempted to get an underwater camera to capture all the fishies and us diving, but it probably wouldn't work as well as Banana's camera did in Merida and certainly not in the dark depths we'll be going to. Oh well, surface pics are fun too.

They sell loads of Luchador masks here which makes me think of Nacho Libre. Love it. They also seem to only sell one size fits all outfits for women. I'm not sure why people say America is so tubby - people here are packing on the pounds, just in shorter stature. But maybe when they say "America" they mean all of it. McDonald's is a bargain deal here. Value meals are like 2 bucks - not that we would know anything about that (double cheese burger Wednesdays, mmmmm).

It's not our fault. We can't go outside much in the hot heat during the hours where my fragile skin will likely melt right off of me so we've become quite the mall rats and go see movies when it's too hot out. We do a lot of walking to find these malls (even though everyone seems to want us to take taxis to them - and I thought WE were the lazy ones) and other interesting places and luckily I haven't gotten burnt to a crisp yet! Hooray!

I like it here but I'm not sure how long we'll stay. They have funny places like a smoothy place called Fruti Yogurth - and I have a few challenges (given to me by Pau) that I must accomplish before we move on. Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted on how I do.

Here's to bad Mexican Beer!

We are having a blast with Banana here in Merida - and lots of bad Mexican beer. Sometimes we don't even know what we've ordered but the most popular for me is XX Lager. We tried to order "yardas" of beer thinking yards (and the guys at the table next to us had really tall yard glasses) but it turns out that just means really big margarita glasses of beer. Those guys must have gotten theirs from the Carnival(e).

Surprisingly we haven't seen all that much of Carnival(e) but we did catch some concerts (where we got free bandanas) and everyone is dressed up - for adults (women, anyway) they look like showgirls and for kids it's like Halloween. For some reason a ton of little boys are wearing outfits I thought only dragqueens wore - long sleeve, shiny tops that stop just below their pecks - open tummy - and shiny bell bottom pants. Very strange. Tonight we're going to the parade, so that should be fun. More pictures to come.

What we do have pictures of (on photobucket as of today) is our trip with Banana to the Cenotes! Cenotes are like sink holes or caves full of water and are beautiful - but kinda scary in that the water gets dark and there are little fishes I don't want to touch me. However, they were a blast to swim in and Banana has an underwater camera so the pictures are hysterical.

In order to get to the Cenotes we took a bus and then had to take a bicycle rick-shaw. THEN you had to take these cart things that use the old mining tracks. The carts are pulled by horses and there's only one track so whenever we run into a cart headed towards us one of us has to get off the tracks and let the other pass. Not sure how they decide who, but it ran pretty smoothly. We visited 3 different Cenotes on the tracks and each one was different but fun. The first Cenote was beautiful but the moment we got there everyone left so it was a tad creepy - the back part of the cave was really dark so we didn't swim all the way back.

The second Cenote was awesome because it had a platform to jump about 10 feet into the water - so Banana and I swapped spots and kept trying to get pictures of ourselves jumping into the water (but I suck at timing the photos and missed her every time - my bad). The second Cenote also had these tree roots hanging down which I grabbed a hold of until I heard Jeff say he saw big spiders on them - and then I swam away from them for good. We had a picnic lunch and visited the last Cenote, but only Banana swam there since we were running out of time. The underwater pictures of us are hysterical - so check those out. On the way back, Jeff decided to tell the rick-shaw driver that he wanted to try out driving so the driver and I rode in the front while Jeff drove. He did a great job, but I believe it was tiring. We passed some adorable Mexican suburb type houses - just like the USA where each house is exactly the same but in alternating colors. Only difference is that their colors are much more vibrant (see pics).

PS. Don't keep your wallet in your pocket when you jump into a Cenote - because then you have to dry out all of your money while traveling back on the carts. DO, however, keep your watch on - because if you watch happens to be annoyingly broken and won't stop beeping every hour, this will fix it to it no longer beeps every hour (even if you lose the face of your watch...somehow).

Tomorrow we're headed to the ruins of Uxmal (ooosh mall), so more pictures to come. Tooodles!

They were all naked

Well, not all of them, but a lot of them anyway. So, Jeff and I went to the beach yesterday. Very eventful. Most people take a taxi or a collectivo (shared ride) since it´s a few miles to get to the beach - but we didn´t feel like paying and thought the walk would be nice so we found our own way. In order to get to the beach you have to go through one of the hundreds of resorts - so we did. Wrong resort. I guess the private beach we found doubles as a nudey beach - not the pretty kind.

Who cares about naked people since we got to have a corona on the beach! Not in hammocks but in swing chairs - close enough. I´ll get that commercial perfect corona moment soon, I know it!

We´re in Tulum, Mexico - where punch buggies come to die. We´ve been here for a few days relaxing and today we´re on our way to Merida to visit Anna-Banana (my roommate from college). This weekend is Carnival so it should be one heck of a good time.

We´re staying in a nice Cabana with lots of little geckos running around making funny cherping noises. Kinda cute. The huge roach that dropped into the bathroom to keep me company after my shower yesterday was not so cute, but he kept his distance and respected my close personal space so that´s ok.

You may not believe this - but the pastey sticks I call legs got some pigment here in Tulum. And I´m going to try for even more. Can you imagine? Wish me luck!

Tikal!

Finally! It was everything I wanted it to be - and we got to leave right when it started getting blazing hot so it was perfect. Who cares if our camera died near the end - we took plenty of pictures of all the good stuff (they're posted now).

My favorite was Temple V because it was fun to climb (albeit I nearly wet my pants getting up the steep ladder and found out I may be a tad afraid of heights with no safety railings), the views were nice, I was up on it all alone at one point, and the pictures make it look like I was going to slide down it! FUN. I wanted to tumble Domo down the slide part and act like he was a human sacrafice - which I'm sure they did way back when - but Jeff said he may get stuck in the middle and there's no way to get him back of that happens. Not worth the risk, although the photo op would have been awesome.

Only disappointing - though safety conscious - thing was that you can't take the real Mayan stairs on any of the big/major temples. They built modern safe ones instead (but at the top you can sit on the alter/top parts and could easily fall down the old Mayan stairs if you wanted).

There are a bunch of signs when you are first driving up to Tikal - snake crossing, jaguar crossing, deer crossing - but my two favorite, and the two that turned out to be true for us - were:
1 - Ant Eater Crossing (SCARY! Those things could claw you! but it was up in a tree so I was ok) and
2 - Turkey Crossing. I don't want to say the turkeys were pretty - but they were the most colorful turkeys I've ever seen. If a turkey had to be pretty, this would be it. But they were still kinda ugly.

On a separate note, I just want to say this: I am having the time of my life and I heart 1st world countries. I want a bumper sticker that says so (if I ever own a car again) - and then just to show that I've done a decent amount of research to come to this conclusion, I can surround that bumper sticker with the flags of all the non-1st world countries I've been to. I like good plumbing (which includes flushing and hot water), Chipoodles, water you're allowed to drink, toilet paper, fewer bugs, sandwiches, shopping, text messaging, Target, OSHA standards - you name it.

And yet I love this trip and can't wait to see where we go next. Also can't wait to have Chipoodles again. :)

19 Mosquito

That is my newly adopted Mayan Name. It was going to be 18 Mosquito (so I could be a close relative to 18 Rabbit), but then I got bit again. The name stems from all of the fabulous mosquito bites I've gotten since we arrived in the glorious tropics. I must be delicious. Good thing we pop malaria pills weekly.

Ok, let's talk about sounds. First, I hear this adorable chirping on the bus. Where is that coming from? Oh, it's the old lady over there holding a trashbag full of baby chicks. That was confirmed when she grabbed one out and then shoved it back in - must have been an ill behaved chick. On the same lines, I woke up to chirping at our Rio Dulce hostel and thought - annoying but sweet of the little birdies to wake me up each morning - even if they sound alarmingly close. I just hoped they didn't poop on me. Since I wasn't wearing glasses until the last day I didn't realize they were actually bats. Everywhere. Very close to me. Jeff said he knew and didn't want to say anything because he feared my reaction. I was calm, I swear (but only because we were leaving that day.

Strangest yet, we woke up at Finca Ixobel in our tree house like room to a crunching/munching noise. When we went out to see what it was I found a horse under our room. It's a tall structure so he was just munching away at the grass at the bottom of our staircase. It was all well and good until I was walking back from the restroom and gave the horse a little finger wave hello and he took that as a signal to run at me. I was half asleep and had visions of being bitten and stampeded so I ran equally fast and beat him to the staircase which I lumbered up as fast as my legs would take me. Take THAT, horse.

Ok, now I want sympathy. While lying in bed I saw a strange object on our mosquito netting just above me. Weird, so I got out and looked closer - it was the biggest freaking spider I have ever seen live! There's a picture on photobucket - look at it - disgusting! Ugh. No one thought it was as gross as I did, but that just means they are all crazy. RIght?

We liked Finca Ixobel and got to go on a fun horseride. It only rained a bit during the ride and otherwise was peaceful. If not for being really sore in spots, I would have liked it a tad more. The food there was awesome and we met some great people from Norway, England and Israel and hung our with them for a few days.

We are now in the lovely little island type thing of Flores, Guatemala. It's a tiny peninsula jutting out into the lake Peten Itza - I think. Very cute, pretty darn hot, and only an hour and a half from Tikal. YES! I'm pumped about that - which we'll go to tomorrow and Monday. For now, we are celebrating Valentines Day by Jeff taking me to a lovely lunch at Burger King (BOOBOO JANG!). Very romantic.

Copan, Honduras

We finally exited Guatemala for a short time to visit Copan, Honduras and see the Mayan Ruins there. We also had a fantastic tour guide in the form of some new found friends from Holland. And Austin Powers doesn´t like the Dutch! Crazy talk, these people were tons of fun.

Lots of pictures up on Photobucket (see link in posts below). It was our first trip to any ruins and won´t be our last, but I really enjoyed it. I also only know half there is to know about Copan´s ruins since our ¨Tour Guide¨ took the liberty of making a lot of it up - which I think made it a ton more fun. What we do know is the coolest ruler in all of Mayan history is 18 Rabbit. He´s so cool there´s a card game named after him. Well, one in the works, anyway.

I had another run in with mangy dog poo, but I´m really trying to watch my step these days and hope that will be the last. I won´t count on it, though.

Now we´re back in Guatemala and for the first time in a hot area. It´s muggy and I´m sweating a ton - makes me kinda miss the highlands. But in a few days we´ll finally visit Tikal so the mosquitos and damp everything is worth it for now.

We´re in Rio Dulce and staying at a river front hostel so we have to take a boat to get anywhere. Kinda fun - and we contemplated taking one of the free ¨canoes¨ out onto the river, but I really don´t want to fall in that merky water and the free canoes look pretty ancient. We´re off tomorrow for a place called Finca Ixobel on our way to Flores. Should be a fun stop. Toodles!

Goodbye Pana, Hello Antigua

We´ve finally left Panajachal. Actually, I´ll kind of miss it. Since we spent so much time there we found the best restaurants and cafes to hang out at and met some really cool people. So if you´re ever in Pana, ask us for recommendations. :)

Now we´re in Antigua and I´m not entirely sold on it yet. It´s a bigger town and very touristy, which has it´s good and bad parts. It´s kinda dirty in a way and yet they´ve hidden away all the mangy dogs. Sad. This time I was lucky enough to step in little boy pee - who knew I had to watch my step when walking down the sidewalk. Toddlers will be toddlers, I guess. Ew.

We were going to go up Volcano Pacaya because it has real lava flowing!! But the guide said there´s not much to see right now and it´s better to wait until there´s more flowing lava. Too bad too - because they have zero safety features and we could walk right up to real lava. Oh yeah! Next time. So we´re being lazy for a day and then heading up to another village with has a hotel called Earth Lodge. They supposedly have tree house cabins! FUN. I´m excited about that.

Then we´ll make our way up to see my roommate from college, Anna Banana. No idea what route we´ll take yet - Mexico, Belize to Mexico, etc. - but we´ll figure it out on the way and let you know how it all goes with pictures to boot!

Ziplines, Domo & Tigerduck

I lost my helmet while ziplining. Of course I did, right? Therefore I needed to wear the chin-strap, which is optional. But after my little guide had to go find my helmet in the forest (see pics on photobucket), I decided the chinstrap was for the best. Even if I look silly as all get out. Poor guide - and when I say little I mean in stature. The paths were definitely built for people of a shorter variety than me and Jeff.

Anyway, this morning Jeff and I visited the Nature Reserve here at Lake Atitlan and I was super excited to Zipline through it since I have never done that before. Why not wait until we're in a country that totally ignores all safety features, eh? So I was all excited until I realized that in order to zipline down you have to first climb up. Ugh. It worked out, though - was tons of fun and we got fun pictures out of it. Then we walked around and saw monkeys (just 2 - boring) and a butterfly area. Very pretty.

Also, I should explain the picture of Domo and Tigerduck. Tigerduck is Jeff's little friend - the love child of a tiger and a duck (see photos) and he is from a German children's book (copy this link: http://www.google.com.gt/search?hl=es&q=tigerente&btnG=Buscar+con+Google&lr=). Jeff carried him around the world on his last trip so this time I thought I should have a funny thing of my own to bring along. My sister, the creative one, made me a little Domo (aka Domo-kun - copy this link: http://images.google.com.gt/images?hl=es&q=domo-kun&lr=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi).

He's just the cutest thing to come out of Japan! I love him, although I have no idea why. So we take pictures of Domo and Tigerduck along our trip as a joke and although I feel pretty silly getting them out sometimes, it's hysterical!

More photos up today. Hope everyone likes them and don't forget that I put some (like the 6:09 pm shots) in folders on Photobucket - so look to the left for those folders.

I stepped in Mangy Dog poo.

Wah. For a few hours yesterday I wondered exactly why I smelled so bad - but I finally figured it out. A bunch of it, too. Disgusting - but gone now. I'm documenting the mangy dogs as I go so feel free to check our Photobucket site for more (fabulous) mangy dog pics.

We are in Lake Atitlan and I love it. No pressure from school, tons of shopping, yummy food and tons to see. I think if it's not the most beautiful lake in the world I'm sure it makes the top 20. Super cute town too (Panajachal).

However, we took a boat ride today to another town that was NOT cute (Santa Cruz). Far from cute - it was in fact boring and stupid. I walked an hour at a 45 degree incline that I did not care for one bit. Not one bit. To what end? What did we find at the top? NOTHING. Well, some chickens and kids. Some ten year old called me "sexy". Inappropriate - and totally untrue at the time since I was miserable and sweaty and tired (see our picture here...)

We're becoming regulars and this yummy dive kind of restaurant down the street from us. Not sure of the name, but they have Happy Hour from 10 am to 11 pm and it's usually pretty empty in there. We like it a lot.

Pau - Mangy Dog pics are up. Woohoo!
Nario and Hucker - More plant life for you.
Lambert - Check out Pana Rock! Total rip off of Hard Rock - tell them! (also tell Coke to get down here, there's way too much pepsi.)
Adub - they played Ace of Base today at our restaurant! Now you know why we're regulars!

Who is the person following my friendly update named "What are you thinking..."?

All - hope you're doing well. Toodles.

The Exotic Pigeon

Jeff and I were able to visit the Zoo of Xela on Sunday and see all it's exotic wild life. The Zoo had a few awesome features, in my opinion. One, is that they had caged - and not caged since they are everywhere in the WORLD - pigeons. Fascinating. Two, the cages for each and every animal wouldn't stop a 3 year old (or anyone who can walk or crawl) from going directly up to each cage and sticking your fingers in. That's especially fun and exciting with the Jaguar and Coyote cages - and all of the predatory birds (see pics on photobucket: http://s423.photobucket.com/albums/pp320/dscheffy/ and don't forget to click on the pictures for mini descriptions of each). Hysterical - and totally dangerous.

Other than the Zoo we've been pretty mellow. We saw a movie (in English but with Spanish subtitles), spoke some espanol, ate lots of western food, and shopped at the local mall for a new camera. Yes, people, that's right - I lost yet another thing. And I wonder why I everyone said don't bring my engagement ring. Blah! We lost it in our host family's house and it's gone forever - and I am road rage like angry about it. Blind Rage, if you can imagine that of little ol'me.

We leave tomorrow for Lake Atitlan - self titled most beautiful lake in the world (and I believe it makes it onto the top 100 lists of others). It is supposed to be beautiful so who knows how long we'll stay there - but I'm excited for a change of pace and to get to sleep in. Talk to you from the lake!

The Mangy Dog game lives on!

When we were in India, Jeff and I got to play two fun games. One was "Man Peeing" and the other was "Mangy Dog!" I didn't know that I would get to play more Mangy Dog when we got here but they are EVERYWHERE. It's just like Punch-buggy where you get a point for every vw bug you see. Luckily the mangy dogs don't want anything to do with us, so that's nice.

Yesterday we went to some hot springs and it was WAY hot in those pools. There were 3 pools - super hot, kind of hot, and decent hot. I could only stick my feet in the super hot, but jeff went all the way in. The kind of hot wasn't bad, but I prefered the only decent hot pool and stayed in that the rest of the time. The ride to the hot springs was about a half hour up a windy road that made me quite naseous, but had some amazing views. A ton of farmland with the biggest carrots I've ever seen!

Sadly, we opted not to wake up super early to try out the Tai Chi classes on Tuesday or today - they started at 6 am. No thank you. But gracias anyway. Today we have more Salsa classes and tomorrow we get to go to a Chocolate Factory.

We are currently putting more pictures online at a site called "Photobucket" (hahaha, bucket). Here's the link to all our good pics so far (all pictures have titles and descriptions and others are in well named albums to the left of the screen):
http://s423.photobucket.com/albums/pp320/dscheffy/

Jeff won´t let me buy a machete. WAH.

Can´t a girl buy a big scary knife when she wants? Perhaps it´s punishment for last night. We went out to dinner with Mateo, a fellow student, and while at the restaurant we enjoyed a lot of loud hispanic music. It was good music, but then I got the idea to request songs - there was a DJ, it´s not my fault - DJ´s call to me. But surprisingly there was no Jay Z, Luda or Timbaland, so we just said yes to musica americana. Oooops.

For the next half hour we listened, LOUDLY, to some Richard Marx, Poison, Seanad O´Conner, that Don´t Worry Be Happy song. UGH. Needless to say we cleared most of the place out. Oh well, we had a good time anyway.

Salsa lessons were great the other night! Per the teacher Jeff and I were doing a really good job although the turns are a bit tricky. I believe we get to go again this week so we can practice more. Very fun.

Then we went to a glass factory on Friday and although all the workers were gone, we got to watch a sweet video on how they make all the glass bowls, cups, etc. The other students said on Monday they went to a chocolate factory that also happened to be closed and they watched videos...I´m starting to wonder if this is a scam. Just kidding. Kind of. On Saturday, however, the volcano was open so no video that day. Just a LOT of uphill walking. Clearly I´m way out of shape, but at the crater of the volcano was a lake and we walked around that. Very beautiful (see picture above). There were some great views of other volcanos and the walk down was much more pleasant than the walk up.

We also found ducks in our family´s backyard - so a dog, a parrot, a fish and ducks. I still don´t want to touch any of them but the Parrot, Thomas, won´t be quiet unless you give him some tortilla so I have had to do that once or twice. I don´t get any closer than necessary - he likes to bite. Ew.

The food is pretty good and our family switches it up every day so that´s nice. The only food I didn´t like so far was some soup with nasty legumes in it. But I ate it - I´ll eat whatever they put in front of me and give it to jeff when they aren´t looking if need be. We have only eaten out twice with students, otherwise we prefer to eat at home (its free there). There´s also a GREAT bread place called Xelapan (xela is the town we´re in and pan is bread in espanol). Yummy cookies and breads. Down the street there is a billboard for Taco Bell and so help me I will find where they are hiding that Taco Bell. You can´t tease me with a billboard and not give me beans!!

Adios for now!

Xela

No, that is not the name of some character from a sci-fi book (although it doesn't sound bad...). That's the name of the town we are staying in right now about 4 hours outside of Guatemala City. We are staying with a family and taking Spanish classes during the day. The family has a dog, a parrot and a fish. I don't want to touch any of them, but the dog loves Jeff.

Jeff just showed me how to change my keyboard to an Enlgish one, so sorry to anyone I emailed before. This is muuuuch better.

No one in the familiy and none of the teachers will speak English to you, so it's immersion all the way. I know that's great for learning and all but it makes me slightly nervous. We'll see how I feel two weeks from now. Each afternoon they have an activity for us and tonight we're doing Salsa lessons. Tomorrow we're going to a glass blowing factory and Saturday on a hike of a mini volcano. They aren't mandatory, but they sound like a good time so we're in.

We've got hot water! Which makes me love the family we're staying with way more than the dirty hostel the first night. DIRTY. DIRTY!! And full of hippies - and we all know how I feel about that. :)

The towns are full of McD's, BooBoo Jangs/BK's, Pizza Huts, Dominos and Wendy's. But we eat every meal with our family so none of that. I am getting my fill of beans - oh yeah! We had some strange soup today that had a chunk of beef and some strange beans that are not the good beans I know and love - but I ate it and per usual make Jeff finish any meal I can't finish on my own.

We've taken pictures but can't transfer them yet - we will soon though, promise. Don't be shocked - I chopped all my hair off - but it's still me. We also adopted the tradition Rocko told us about where you take a picture every day at the same time no matter what you're doing. 6:09 pm my alarm goes off and we take a picture - either of each other or together. Yesterday we were having a beer (gallo cervesa) and resting from a long walk to the town square. Today we'll probably be dancing, so we'll get someone else to take a picture for us.

Hope everyone is doing well! Talk to you soon!

We made it and have already been to McD's

But that was strictly to use the internet ... and have a mcflurry.  We were delayed by 8 hours so we had a great nights sleep on ohare's floor and are up for another one in our fine hostel (dirty!!).

 

Off to our immersion school tomorrow - so wish us luck - with the spanish and the bus to get there.  Will write more later and post pics - but it's way past my bedtime.