Here comes the rain.

Rainy season is coming. The past two days it's begun to sprinkle a bit in the afternoons, and my informants tell me this signals that daily showers can pretty much be expected from here on out. This was confirmed by my taxi driver today, who got a huge smile on his face when he needed to turn on the windshield wipers. He said he loves water so "winter" is his favorite part of the year; he gleefully told me it lasts until September.

I didn't take full advantage of the good weather while it was here. I tried to do a lot but there were plenty of Saturday mornings I slept in or wrote emails instead of enjoying my pool. As of now, my swimming count for the year is: one time. I tried to go today, but it's a little cold and while waiting for the sun to warm my up enough to go in, I fell asleep on the edge. I woke up a little later, freaked out a bit when I saw how close I was to the water, and went inside and fell asleep on the couch for two hours. Sorry Alex. (Alex was over to swim and I abandoned him for the nap; he must have sort of liked the idea because he is now sleeping on my bed.)

I also realized today that, like with the perfect sunny days, I didn't take full advantage of the newness of being here. I've stopped seeing things the way I did when I first got here; I'm used to it, as you may be able to tell by my drop off in blog posts. I have to look harder to see things than I did my first month here.

I've also noticed that I have to start working harder at friendship. There is definitely a grace period when you enter a new situation (especially something like moving to a new country) where making friendships and building them is easier. Unlike the tales from elementary school books, everyone is actually pretty nice to the new girl. They want you to feel comfortable and know you have friends even though it feels like you're starting out with no one.

But then you get used to being around each other, you run out of easy things to say, you run out of thoughtless things to do. Suddenly the amount of real investment you've put in the relationship stares you in the face and you realize that you have to try in order to progress. It's worth it, no doubt. You need people in your daily life who will get excited with you about lame thing just because you're excited. Who will stick around when you're not funny or even when you're grumpy and say things you don't mean to say, or did mean to say but in completely the wrong way. But it's not easy getting to that level. I'm really bad at it, actually.

Basically all this to say I miss my family and friends who will put up with me no matter what, and am very thankful for the grace I'm finding as I try to build a new support system here in Guatemala. More sunny days than rainy ones so far.

i hope the professor thinks i'm taking notes.

I´m currently sitting in a law school classroom in Guatemala with Gaby and Ricardo, learning about the most effective way to set up tables for a mediation, and earlier, wills. They invited me to go with them after work to see what law school is like here in Guate; everything I´ve understood has been really interesting and someone threw a gum wrapper at me. Good experience overall.

On the list for this week: swim in our pool, make a good dinner, climb a volcano, study for the LSAT.

I love my random guatemalan life.

Seguro y Feliz

I've just returned from an adventure with some friends from DC (and Jenny the Randar, from here in Guatemala.) There are FAR too many stories to share here, but I thought I'd share some photos I nabbed from my friends off facebook so that you can all be in awe of how great the past week was.

Copan Ruins, in Honduras. I love Mayan ruins, and these were no exception.

Lovely Lauren. Love her. We spent last Easter together as interns in DC, and were reunited again this year. Tradition?

On the boat on the way to Utila, one of the bay islands. A sign outside the dock said "seguro y feliz," which means safe and happy. It was anything but. That hour and half ended up being the worst of my life - really. It started out somewhat fun, with everyone in the packed cabin screaming happily as the boat tipped back and forth and huge waves smashed into the front windows where the "brave boys" stood laughing. It all dropped off quickly as the man distributing plastic bags began to run from puking person to puking person. I started praying that the boat would tip over, if that gives you any indication of how I was feeling.

In Utila the next day, standing by a dive shop. We were discriminated against almost everywhere we went because weren't getting scuba certified. Whatever.

We walked around the island, and when we got tired we hopped in the back of some hippie's Gator.

I feel as though this would be a good time to mention how incredible my co-travelers were. I mean, this picture pretty much says it all - they're funny, fun-loving and so easy going. And have a long successful modeling career ahead of them.

Snorkeling: not as "cool" as scuba diving, but much more stylish.

At this moment they were freaking out about giant spiders. I happen to like giant spiders, so I instead marvelled at the crazy quirky sculptures at this place, called the Jade Seahorse and created by some artist from California.

Self explanatory. It was a beautiful place.

Jenny and I were sorely disppointed when the bakery on the island was closed for Easter the morning we went to buy bagels. Thankfully, Antigua didn't let us down. The joy flowed.

Apparently the guy who took this picture thought Austin and Lauren were married. Obviously, he was unaware that Austin had recently told Lauren she looked like a less-than-flattering animal.

In a little boat on Lake Atitlan, surrounded by volcanoes.

The view from out hostel. It was so relaxing and beautiful. I set up camp in a hammock and probably could have stayed there for the rest of my life.

Nathan jumping off a cliff. (I did it too.)

I love Jenny, Lauren, Austin, Nathan, volcanoes, lakes, Guatemala and this trip.

He was a moron.

Some outings go better than others here in Guatemala.

Take Wednesday. I liked Wednesday. After work I went with Jo and Victor and a bunch of Victor's cousins on a tour of the local brewery (Gallo, which is rooster in Spanish). We got to see a bunch of old machinery, I learned the Spanish word for "hops" (lupulo) and took part in a beer tasting. I have to say that although I liked the whole experience, swirling "Gallo Light" around my goblet and breathing it in with my eyes closed was a little silly.

Thursday was ok too, after work I went to a movie with the Wheaton gang (my fellow interns, minus Jo, all went to school together). When Meredith and Jenny and I say down in the theater for our 6:20 showing, nothing happened. For 20 minutes. They told me it was a technical error (that's right, I got out of my chair, used my Spanish and asked) and when I returned the the theater most of the people waiting started chanting, clapping, and asking Jenny to teach them bad words in English to see if they would get "He's Just Not That Into You" to start (it eventually did).

Today was sort of a different story. I took a taxi in to meet everyone at a fondue restaurant for Alex's birthday. I left an hour and 15 minutes before I had to be there, because I knew the traffic would be bad on a Friday afternoon. The driver seemed ok at first, aside from his disconcerting posture (he leaned forward the entire ride, squinting at the road through some majorly red eyes) and the really loud soccer Q&A he was blasting on the radio.

But when we finally got to the shopping center where the restaurant was an hour and a half later, he totally ignored my directions and wandered around for a long time before stopping to ask everyone he saw where the restaurant was. I mean, it makes perfect sense to ignore your client in the back of the car SCREAMING at you to go down that road over there, right? She has no idea where she wants to go. She only asked you to pick her up and told you the name and location of Kloster, the restaurant where her friends were waiting for her for fun. Whatev.

At this point I'm getting super frustrated, especially when we're about 500 feet away from the restaurant, I ask him if I can get out, and he says he knows where the restaurant is and he's going to take me there. He jets off before I can open the door, and the next thing you know I'm on my way out of the shopping center. Five minutes later he pulls up at Hooters. HOOTERS. My least favorite place on earth. He assures me that my friends are waiting inside over my loud, consistent, "No, this is NOT the right restaurant" and finally demands that I pay him and get out of his taxi.

Needless to say, I was not happy, standing in front of Hooters wondering why the heck I moved to Guatemala (and why this awful chain has made it all the way here). I tried walking in the direction that I knew the restaurant was in, but at this point it was dark and there were a lot of scary people trying to sell me DVDs and I was lost.

Thank goodness for Victor, who picked me up in a Burger King parking lot and hugged me and didn't get weirded out when I broke down crying. I felt a lot better when he said "Rememeber that new word I learned? Moron? That taxi driver was one."

I love our house.

So it's a Friday night here in Guatemala, and I'm having the time of my life. In my pajamas. At home.

It's been a pretty long week as far as work and being it Guatemala goes. I still like it and everything, but after being home last week the flaws of the city are more evident than its good sides. Everything seems dirty, and people do things differently than I would. I hear this is called culture shock. Well, I don't like it very much. It makes me crabby. I'd like to jump to the stage where I'm ok with everything again and excited to be here.

All this to say that when 5 o'clock rolled around today, I was sooo ready for it. I climbed in my car, turned up my new Ryan Adams mix CD Jenny made for me (so good. I'm surprised I hadn't fallen in love with him before this point) and headed for home with a smile on my face. I wasn't even upset when traffic was bad and I made it through the rest of the CD, because I popped in the mix CD I forced Colin to make me when we were in the airport last week and lost myself in its cuteness for the umpteenth time.

When I got home, I set myself to work re-falling in love with our apartment. I took in my laundry, and decided it was a beautiful day and hence, I should take photos of the house. I'm no photographer, but look at the sunny color of the house - I just wanted to keep the way it looked. It inspired me to climb up on our pool's "waterfall" and take this picture (sorry it's crooked).

Victor called me tonight and said we're going to fill the pool tomorrow morning, so I guess I will have to find another spot to dry my jeans.

From there I walked around the house, admiring its beauty. This photo is of the main floor, looking in from the "backyard" (where the laundry and pool are). I love that my shadow is on the wall. I also love our impromptu dining room table - plastic functions just as well as wood, at least for the time being.

I simultaneously love and am terrified of our stairs. I'm a klutz, plain and simple, and I'm worried that one day I'll be walking through the hallway outside my room over to Jo's room and just fall down. They are beautiful and make the apartment feel really open, however.

So after taking photos, I cleaned up, folded said laundry, turned up my music and made a delicious dinner. I tried to take a picture of it but my camera does not do closeup photos, especially after dark, so they all turned out bad. Because the food was so delicious, I didn't want to detract from its goodness by posting a bad photo; let me just say that I was rather proud of the result. Pasta, onions, garlic, cherry tomatoes and spinach in olive oil resulted in exactly the kind of delicious, relatively healthy comfort food I was going for.

I miss my roommate - things are too quiet without her, and I feel as though she would have appreciated my dinner. Cooking for one is no fun.

So now I'm sitting on my bed, catching up on emails and following the MSU game online. I went to great lengths to feel extremely comfortable right now - I even braved the freezing shower to get ready of the Guatemala City Grime I seem to bathe myself in daily. It was well worth it - not only do I feel great, it means I can sleep longer tomorrow! Hot showers are once thing I unashamedly miss, though. I try to be tough and not complain, but getting up in the morning is a lot harder when you know you're looking forward to chilliness. I took full advantage of heated water last weekend when I was in the US.

Well that's it. The Spartans came through (Go green! Go white! The game was exciting online, I hope it was as good for people who actually got to watch it - and I'm glad my bracket's champion made it to the elite eight) so I'm going to go to bed early so I can fully enjoy tomorrow.

And because I love my bed.