This is it!! I have finally made it to Antigua, Guatemala! It only took several months, hours of planning, a four hour (1:30am) flight from Los Angeles and here I am!
The first glimpses of Guatemala were absolutely breathtaking! The volcanoes and the valleys are so incredible. As are the cities and villages carved into the hillsides. Flying in was just so impressive that I wish I had someone telling me what exactly I was seeing. I could recognize Lago Atitlan, which looks just as beautiful as I was assured it would be.
The Guatemala City airport seemed freakishly new. And clean. It was both impressive and odd. The airport also seemed incredibly devoid of humans. Yes there was employees, but very minimal. I spent a few moments trying to complete my customs form, which thankfully was both Spanish and English. So I was well on my way to not being a total gong show. However, I couldn’t understand some of the questions on the sheet. Or rather what it would mean to them. I ended up leaving a few blank and hoped that if any of them were essential the custom’s man would fill it in.
I am still struggling with the whole answer in Spanish thing. People would ask questions, and I was marginally able to keep up. At least until I had to blurt out some Spanish. Although I at least take it in stride that my lame attempts at learning Spanish at least left me able to understand SOME Spanish. So huzzah on that. One particularly amusing moment was when the last Custom’s officer asked me where I was from but made a presupposition that I was from the US. Somehow (I really don’t know how) we started talking about boxing. I said that I was a kickboxer, which I hope he understood. He seemed quite proficient at English, so I hope he understood.
I was told by the Spanish school (Academia de Espanol Sevilla) that I would be picked up by a driver with my name and the school name. Sadly he was running late. The only reason I found this out was because several shuttle drivers inquired where I was off too. I informed them that I was headed to a school (escuela in Spanish) and they managed to help me out. They talked amongst themselves and then the main guy, whose name I’ve forgotten, asked me if I had their phone number. Luckily I wrote it down. He called them and I got the answers I needed. About 5 minutes later my shuttle arrived, driver toting a sheet with my name. A short conversation in Spanish ensued. To be honest I was so flustered because I just wanted to get out of there. Mostly because the arrivals part of the airport was outside, with me standing on one side of a metal barrier and 60 Guatemalans on the other. I definitely felt out of place and I suppose I should get used to that feeling.
The driver took me straight to the Student House and I met the lady who cooks and cleans it. Her name is Gladis. A sweet, kind woman of only 17 year old. Gladis and I managed to converse about where I was from, how old I was, what I studied, my family members names, and more. With my limited Spanish I was even able to get answers! Huzzah! I couldn't believe that I was able to have a semi-functional conversation in Spanish. I probably sounded like a complete idiot, but it was absolutely thrilling to be able to do it!
I opted to start school that afternoon. I had a few hours to kill though so I decided to clean myself off and head out investigating Antigua. I managed to find the post office, several banks and the Parque Central across from the Cathedral. I definitely got slightly lost along the way, Antigua seriously has no street signs. Or rather they are sort of randomly posted at one portion of the road and you only happen across those every so often. So you need to count blocks instead. Which when you are wandering and trying to absorb everything, sort of makes you forget about counting.
My first lesson was fantastic! And my teacher, Lorena, is hilarious and seems to know a moderate amount of English. This makes my life so much simpler. We covered 4 different verbs and I definitely had issues pronouncing "nosotros nos llamamos". One important lesson learned was that depending on pronunciation Mama can either mean Mother or breast. Frankly I wouldn't put it past me to ask someone accidentally what they call their breast. It just isn't great though for first impressions.
She did mention that I seemed to follow a conversation quite well and that I seemed to understand a lot of the words she was trying to teach me already. I hope this means that at the end of my travels I will be more capable of conversing in Spanish than I am currently.
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