06/25 Had a little rain to start the day. Lasted about an hour and then it mostly just drizzled. Luck was on my side because an hour after I arrived in town a nasty thunderstorm rolled through. I was safe and sound in my US $4.99 motel room so it didn’t matter. The place is called the Plaza Hotel. The room isn’t bad–2 beds, cable TV, a fan, space for my bike and it’s pretty clean. The shower/bathroom are shared but I can live with that for five bucks.

I’m running into a few places where the people don’t speak Spanish or English so it takes a little more non-verbal communication to be understood. There are something like 22 spoken languages in Guatemala so it was just a matter of time. Even the word for water (agua) is different. I had to show a lady the little bit left in my bottle so she’d know what I wanted. Food is so cheap here too. Lunch was a big plate of rice, beans and chicken tortillas plus 2 Cokes for US $3.

I forgot to mention the parrots at the hotel in La Reforma. They spoke to everyone sitting near them at the restaurant in Spanish. “Hola! Hola!” over and over again. They also made a barking noise when they got hungry.

GPX Track

Little update since its been a few days. Still in school although I changed my classes a little. For the first week I was the only student in both my morning and afternoon classes. Then on week two some more people joined in the class. The new people actually knew a little Spanish so it was kind of awkward for me to have to go through the lessons using my halting, child-like Spanish skills. I switched over to private classes so I can cram more learning time in. Picking up everything has been hard. Learning a new language is 100% all about memorizing things and there’s a lot to remember. My sentences are starting to take shape a little and my vocabulary is a lot better. I doubt I’m going to be able to have constructive 2 way conversations with anyone when I leave but if I can get the basics down I can always practice on the road.

The place I was staying didn’t work out so I moved into a school-owned private apartment. The people there were awesome but the room was too loud and I had to sit outside to get internet access. The new place is a 15 minute walk from school but its 100x quieter and it has wireless.

One of the 2 things I ordered from the States via eBay arrived after just a week. It was a GE 26695 VoIP In-Ear Headset/Earphone & Inline Microphone. Got it for when I’m using Skype. It’s crap. The headphone part is fine but the microphone is terrible. Even with the PC mic volume all the way up recorded sounds are barely audible (Skype’s software even warns about it when making a call). The background hissing is also distracting.

The other thing I ordered, the immersion heater, hasn’t arrived but I saw one in a store and bought it since it was only US $2.65. Some of them don’t have a long life expectancy so I’ll hang on to both if the other one gets here before I leave.

Oh, I tried grasshoppers for the first time yesterday. A friend of mine, Beata ordered something off the menu called Delicious Crepe. Well on the English section of the menu it had the real name of the dish: Grasshopper Crepe. She went ahead and ordered it and we all tried some. The little hoppers had been fried up and seasoned with various things. I had 3 and thought they were pretty good. Will I start riding with my mouth open now? No.

After the grasshopper dinner we took a taxi to Guadalajara and watched Sherlock Holmes (in English–good movie too). I’ve had a cold for the last few days so the 40 F rainy weather was kind of brutal but I had a great time. They had a Dairy Queen at the mall too. First one I’ve seen in Mexico.

The pics below are just random ones from different days last week.