Blogworthy weekend recap starts… now.

Friday night wasn’t really anything special. I’m content with the quiet evenings I’ve grown accustomed to here. I have four years worth of the weight of homework hanging over my head to work to work off by reading or going to be early.

I made a smoothie (wow, I wasn’t going to write about food in this blog but it showed up in the second paragraph) from some of the fruit I talked about a few posts ago. The good thing about
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how cheap the fruit is here is that I don’t feel particularly bad for using up so much in one drink. Actually there are only good things about how cheap the fruit is here.

After trying and failing to sleep in on Saturday morning, I woke with the sun and construction workers, chatted with a few people on Skype and then went to find the bus toward town.

A few words about the buses here. They are almost all former school buses painted in many colors – greens, reds, blues, whatever. When I first got here I thought they were pretty ridiculous, but they’re growing on me – usually they’re detailed and kind of cool. The insides, though, are another matter. For example. The bus I took that morning was decked out with a banner made out of pom poms with the drivers names, a plethora of Christian decals, a full set of stuffed animal Winnie-the-Pooh keychains, and some naked girl stickers. Add in some crazy awful music and an assistant yelling out the bus’s destination and you get the Guatemalan bus experience.

So then I grabbed a taxi (which ripped me off) and headed to Oakland Mall. Oakland Mall is ridiculous. While it may not be as big as Rivertown, it has all these extravagant touches, like a fountain that falls from the ceiling and spells words out of water: it’s sort of like a scrolling marquee but out of drops of water.

Highlight: buying and eating a Nutella crepe. And Jenny's bling bling diamond-studded revolver necklace purchase.

That evening Jo and I went to the civil wedding of Victor’s sister. Here in Guatemala, the legal marriage takes place before the ceremony in the church. I’m not sure how they’re making it through this week, being “married” but not being married. I guess on the bright side you get two parties. I loved being invited to this civil which is only for family, especially because I won’t be around for the actual wedding Saturday (I’m going home!).

I slept for a very short amount of time then got up early Sunday morning to again take the bus into town and again grab a taxi, this time to meet some coworkers to begin our trek to Tecpan. It’s a city about an hour and a half outside Guatemala City apparently sort of known for its traditional breakfasts, which lived up to the hype. I loved the beans and warm tortillas that were being made nearby, and I’m a huge unashamed fried plantain fan.

Then we headed to the Iximche ruins, which I have pictures of! I finally remembered to bring my camera somewhere! Unfortunately I was so excited to climb up to the top of the ruins that I didn’t take many. I love Mayan ruins, I can't lie. Especially the ball courts (last picture). Following are a few:
Good weekend overall, if incredibly tiring. It was strangely relaxing to be back at work this morning.