Mi Vida en Antigua, Guatemala

I'll soon leave Antigua, so here's a little window into my life here...

Antigua is a small city (pueblo) of 40,000 in the southwest/central part of Guatemala, situated between three volcanoes. It was founded in 1543 and served as the Spanish colonial capital for 233 years. Much of the town was destroyed by a major earthquake in 1773 and although it was rebuilt, the colonial capital was moved to Guatemala City.

The weather here is just about perfect. It gets up into the 80s most days, but with almost no humidity. At night it cools off to the low 60s or even 50s.

This first picture is me in front of Antigua's famous "arc," which I believe was the only structure to survive a particularly nasty earthquake.

This is La Merced, the largest church in town. I pass it every day on my way from home to school. Construction began in 1548, but it was ruined by earthquakes twice and wasn´t completed until 1855.

Here I am with my two "maestras," Delmi on the left in "traje tipico" (traditional clothing) and Carla on the right. I started with Carla and really liked her, but had to switch in order to stay with morning classes (8-12) as opposed to afternoon (12-4).

Here's my host family--along with five students they're currently housing. Last night was Corey's last here in Antigua, so he and I cooked dinner for everyone. As I mentioned before, they're truly fantastic. They speak slow, patient Spanish with us and correct us constantly with complete good nature.

Chris and Megan, both Canadian. Megan is in language school, but Chris has been here for a few months and hasn't been attending classes for a while. He is quite simply the busiest guy I've ever met who does absolutely nothing--in fact, Chris does the "nothing" of three men. This makes him a great person to know b/c he's checked out every bar, restaurant, etc. in town.

This is Tess and Uulay, both Swedish and both very cool. They had an...interesting relationship.

Here I am drinking whisky with Corey the night we met the rest of these clowns.

And, here's four of us overlooking Lago de Atitlan from the town of San Pedro (about 2.5 hours from Antigua).

Finally, here's Corey and me with our newest roommate Craig who works on cruise ships in Alaska.

We´re in a bar called Reds which became our regular hangout. It´s directly across the street from La Merced.