Days 1 and 2

I made it! Talk about the most exciting 2 days ever.

I woke up at 4am on Monday to fly through Atlanta to Guatemala city. On my second flight, I helped an old Korean woman fill out her customs forms using mostly charades, which took up most of the time on the 3 hour flight.

When I got to Guatemala City I met Alex from my school (which is called COINED, for future reference). He drove me to the city I'm staying in, Antigua. The only thing I have to say about that trip is "holy mountains!". Guatemala is beautiful!

We went straight to the house I'm living in and I met my host family, Oswoldo and Candaleria. They're both 80 and still kickin'! There are 2 other girls from my school living in the house, Dalia from Montreal and Helene from Sweden. After my first lunch at the house, they walked me to the school.

Even though I was a day late, I still made it to orientation. The director of the school, Jorge, is really nice. He gave us a walking tour of the city to help us navigate the place. After dinner I went with Dalia and Helene to the Rainbow Cafe, a really cool coffee shop with murals on every wall and live music.

The next day I didn't have much to do so I spent some time just wandering around (I need to mention here that I will never be lost in Antigua because there is a volcano at the end of my street. It's even better than the Twain smokestacks for finding your way home). I spent the afternoon at a cafe terrace overlooking central park. Beautiful!

That night a group from my school went out for dinner at a place called Cafe Sky, which is at the edge of town and has a great view of the mountains. In the 7-person group we had people from 5 different countries: the US, Canada, Korea, Norway, and Sweden. How cool is that?

I came here to get some global perspective, but I never imagined it would be quite like this. Not only am I seeing what it's like to live in Central America, but I'm also getting to know people from all kinds of backgrounds, ages, and cultures (fault lines, anyone?). It's SO amazing!

And the best part is I've only been here 2 and a half days!