We got up at 7:45 to get ready for church. I ate a granola bar and dried fruit in our room. We headed to Iglesia del Camino (The Way Church) for the service at 9. They were passing out adhesive nametags as we walked in. I noticed that the package had a boxtop on it, so I quickly asked if I could peel it off. Unfortunately it was the kind that does not really come off. The lady saw this and said I could take the whole package! Woohoo! Even in Guatemala, I am collecting boxtops! Well, only one so far, but you never know. This is the super cool bilingual church that I went to when I was here a few years ago. There were lots of people, as before, with a mix of gringos and Guatemalans. We sang songs in English and Spanish. The sermon was about the scripture that says Take my yoke. We had the bright idea of adding all of our coins to our offering to lighten the load in our wallets. We got our offering ready early and put it in the provided envelopes. We were supposed to put the offering in a box with a slot as we went out the door. However, we had put so many coins in the envelopes that they could not fit through the slot and we had to take them out and put them in a few at a time, holding up the whole line. Oops! The church is in the process of building a large building for a new feeding program. That would be really fun to help with in the future.
After church we headed to Personajes, a restaurant with an amazing breakfast brunch. They had real fruit juice that was delicious. I had two glasses of watermelon juice, one of cantelope, and one of orange. I also had coffee with cream and sugar. For food, I had an omelette with mushrooms, cheese, onions, and tomato. I also ate black beans, refried black beans, plantains, watermelon, cantelope, and pineapple. The refried beans were extremely salty. Everything else was fantastic! We were very full. The bathroom was nice with automatic soap and paper towels.
Next, we headed to the bank. I tried to take out money with my debit card, but that bank was not open. We went to the other bank and Christiana exchanged more money. Then we went back to the house and I got my dress. We saw Elvira and took pictures with her because she was all dressed up from church. We went back to the dress shop and the owner was very nice. She told me that the fabric was preshrunk, but she asked if I would like a different size anyway. I tried on a pink dress that was a medium and decided to trade.
We went back to the Carmen market so Christiana could buy another necklace for her aunt. We walked around by Central Park looking for dogs to feed. we found two mother dogs and Christiana gave them most of the bread she had. Then we went to a bakery so Christiana could buy more bread for the dogs. Next we went to the Internet cafe so I could check for a message from Amber so I could see what the plans were for going back with her. On the way there, it started to sprinkle and the sky looked dark. When we got to the Internet cafe, it was not quite 2:30 so we stood outside and talked for a few minutes. I did have a message from Amber saying that she would come tomorrow at 11:45 and we would leave around 4:30 for Guatemala City. We walked to the massage place down the street to see if we could get massages sometime today.
The lady told us to sit down and she would check. She then told us to come upstairs, so we ended up getting our massages right then. I wanted a deep tissue massage and Christiana got the Swedish massage. The spa is beautiful. Our room had a fountain and music playing (rather loudly to try to drown out the sounds of the street below). The massage table had rose petals scattered around on it. My massage was interesting. It certainly was not as good as what I get in the States, but it was a whole lot cheaper. I had to tell the lady to massage harder two different times. Even when she did it a little harder, it still did not feel like she was massaging me very hard. I actually preferred the shoulder massage Christiana gave me one day when my shoulder was hurting. The most unusual part of my massage was when she massaged my stomach. That was the only part of the massage that I felt like she was doing hard. It was kind of like the Heimlich maneuver. What the experience was lacking in the enjoyment level of the massage was made up by the shower. There was a bathroom attached to the massage room and they had a shower with shampoo and conditioner and, most importantly, HOT water! Plus fantastic water pressure. It was the best shower I have ever taken in Guatemala. Usually the shower is lukewarm and the water pressure is pretty low. This was amazing! I never wanted to come out, but I did.
We went back to the house to dry our hair and drop off a few things. We saw Elvira's grandson. He has gotten really big! We grabbed our sweaters and headed out to go to the candy shop so we could try huevos chimbos which are a traditional Guatemalan candy. When we were at Dona Maria's candy shop, we were standing in line outside and I heard someone talking about Austin, Texas. I turned around and it was Steffi and her husband, Ben! They showed us the candy they had bought and gave us a huevos chimbos to split. It tasted like the filling in a pecan pie, sort of. Christiana decided she wanted to buy candy at another candy store instead. We walked across the street and looked at the Choco Museum where you can make your own chocolate. It smelled heavenly, but it was very expensive. We went to Sombreron, which is another candy store west of Central Park. Christiana bought candy as a souvenir and a few pieces to eat tonight. We headed home to drop off the candy, stopping at a bakery to buy more bread for the dogs because she had already fed two more. We tried Christiana's candy: coconut ball, crisp cookie made with eggs and flour, and a coffee milk candy. We then headed out to look for food. I had bought a croissant with cheese and black beans inside at the second place Christiana bought dog bread. I wanted to stop by Burger King and McDonalds to make sure I was not missing out on any unusual food options. I showed Christiana how fancy McDonalds is on the inside, complete with a courtyard with a fountain and many trees. Nothing unusual to try, so we headed to Pollo Campero where Christiana got fried chicken. Then we went on a search for a tienda so she could buy a pop. We had to walk several blocks to find one and when we did, it was filled with cigarette smoke from another customer. I waited outside with the chicken. We walked back to Central Park where a group was playing music with the flute and panpipes. It was pleasant to listen to and the temperature was also. The sun was setting as we ate our picnic in the park. I had packed several items from the house, as well as my croissant. After dinner, we took a lap around the park looking for dogs to feed (we did not find any) and then we went to get ice cream. I decided to get ice cream at Sarita because they were having the extra scoop for one quetzal more special again. I got a waffle cone with green apple/watermelon on the bottom and mango/vanilla on the top. The guy tried to charge me too much and I had to argue politely with him so he would give me the correct price, which he finally did. Christiana got two scoops of piña colada in a dish. We walked up fifth avenue eating our ice cream. There was a man acting out scenes with a marionette. We looked for dogs near La Merced before turning up our street. I stopped at the Internet cafe to ask when they open tomorrow (9am) so I can call Amber tomorrow morning to make sure our plan is on. Christiana wanted to catch up on the news via Internet so I started writing my blog from today because it is much easier to type on a computer. We then went home and I packed my stuff while Christiana read and then her dad called. We talked for a while and split our last piece of chocolate-covered pineapple. Then we got ready for bed and turned out the light. I finished this blog post and was in bed at 11.
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