February 14, 2009

Well, here it is Valentines Day, and I hope everyone had a good one. I had a very fun one :) Guatemaltecos absolutely love Valentines Day and everyone goes all out for it. Not necessarily in decorations, but in giving gifts and stuff. Its pretty funny actually.

Sorry it has been ten days since I last blogged, I usually keep up and post them all at the end of the week, but this week has been so packed and I have been sooo tired. It's only 8:00pm now and I am utterly exhausted. I'll just start with what I did each day this past week.

Friday I went to a awesome Hotel/Restauraunt/Museum/Ruins called Santo Domingo. I went into crypts and saw a cool candle shop and found where I want to get married jaja. Of course last weekend I went to the Greene's, which was fun and crazy as always. I always rest really well there. Monday I went on a walking tour of Antigua through 3 churches: San Francisco, La Merced, and the Central Park church, I don't know what it's called. Anyway they were all really beautiful.

Tuesday I had my two hour salsa class, which was awesome. I just love it. I also went out that night because I wanted to practice my salsa. It was ok, very crowded. I got to dance a little but it wasn't awesome. But I was exhausted the next day. I couldn't sleep all that night. I'm not sure why. However....

I had promised myself that this week I would climb Pacaya, an active volcano that is a major destination for travelers. I had to do it, but I had been putting it off. Anyway, I did it dead tired. I took a horse halfway up, but you can only go so far on a horse then you have to walk. it kicked my butt. but it was definitely worth it. The pictures and videos I have don't do it justice. There was lava too! We roasted marshmellows on some hot rocks up there, it was soooo cool :) Check the pics. their great.

Thursday I did an extra salsa class and went out again, but this time it was much better and much more fun because me and my housemate from Finland, Johanna, went out with our salsa teachers, Carmen, Manolo, and Mike. (mike is my teacher, and he's guatemalan and his name is miguel but everyone calls him mike) Mike is great. Yeah. It was better to go out this time because we didn't have to dance with strangers and stuff.

Friday I was really tired too, but went to school and all, the Greenes picked me up early, at 10:30, because they had to pick up a team of 22 people from kentucky at the airport at 1. I helped them get the house ready, and have been helping them make meals and stuff. Its fun.

Today we went to Lago Atitlan, in the town of Panajachel. It was ok. I would have liked to stay the whole weekend, even though you can't get in the lake cuz its too dirty, and I would rather have been at another smaller town. but that's the nature of going with a group of 25 people. But we did do this thing called zip-lining, which is like a cable that you just hook yourself up to and kind of zip across ravines and lakes and stuff. it was really fun and very beautiful. i didn't get any pictures, because your flying through the air, and you can't really take pictures...unfortunately.

So now i'm sitting here, very tired. going to post all this stuff on facebook. i can't wait to see you all! only 2 and 1/2 more weeks!!! I can't believe it. I've been thinking it's going to be hard to readjust when i come back...I don't really want to settle into the same old routine again.

Well more on my feelings later....haha. At least you know what I did this week, and I did a lot!

Love you

Noelle