I just wanted to let you know that Christiana and I made it safely to Antigua. Our flights were both on time, we had no trouble with our airport pick up, and we have already gone to the bank and gotten money after catching up with Elvira and Enrique. I will post more later when I can.
I got up at 4am after only 2 hours or so of sleep. Tammy and I stayed up too late and then I couldn't fall asleep because I was too excited. I got ready, ate a bowl of Cheerios, drank tea, and packed a sandwich and an apple. We left Tammy's at 5 and went to pick Laurel up at her apt. She was riding along with us to see us off and give Tammy someone to talk to on the way back. On our way to pick up Christiana, we saw a red fox running across the street in a neighborhood. We loaded Christiana's suitcase into the trunk and drove to the airport.
There was not a line to check in, so we got to go right to the kiosk. The man gave me a large plastic bag to put over the protective rain cover on my pack. Hopefully it makes it okay. We got through security super quickly as well. We went to the bathroom and filled our water bottles at a special water bottle filling station connected to the drinking fountain. We made it to our gate just 20 minutes or so after arriving at the airport!
Christiana and I sent Elvira a message and wrote down her phone numbers. Then we talked about our plan for the first few days we are in Guatemala. At this point, I think we are going to visit Lake Atitlan Saturday to Sunday. We can scope out the bus situation on Friday and probably do some touristy stuff around Antigua. We are supposed to get to Guatemalaat 1:21 so we should have time to walk around later today.
Our plane took off on time. There was a crying baby in the row in front of us, but the minute we took off, she fell asleep. Hopefully she takes a long nap! The man next to us is going to visit his daughter in Flores, which is a town in northern Guatemala near Tikal. I hope to visit Tikal someday, but it is supposed to be pretty dangerous these days. :(
I spent the flight journaling and reading. Christiana slept. When we got to Houston, we went to the bathroom and found our gate which was very close to where we had arrived. I made a few last minute phone calls and sent some text messages before it was time to get in line to have our passports verified. Christiana's boarding pass did not have a seat number and instead said "see agent." I was a little worried that they had overbooked the flight, but they just moved her to a different seat. I felt bad that she wasn't sitting with me as this is the first time she has had to fill out the immigration forms that are kind of confusing. I saw a girl getting on the plane with a big hiking backpack close to the size of mine. I can't believe she was able to take that as carry-on luggage! I think my goal for my next trip should be to pack light enough I could carry my backpack aboard as I think this would save a lot of wear and tear on it.
As we boarded I started talking to a girl who was wearing a dress and white heels. She is going to Guatemala for the weekend to celebrate her host sister's quincinera. She had studied in Guatemala two years earlier and had promised to come back when her host sister turned 15. I made my way to the very back of the plane (last row) and found a man sitting in my seat. When I arrived, he said that he was supposed to sit in the next row, but he had just been talking with his wife. I asked him where his seat was supposed to be and offered to trade (middle seat for aisle, yes please!). I sat down in my new seat and a minute later a man showed up and said I was in his seat. I then had to go back and ask the man in MY seat which seat was really his. He told me the window start where his wife was sitting. This was getting super confusing. I asked where his wife was supposed to sit and he told me in the aisle seat in their row. I must have looked skeptical or he must have been unsure because he checked her boarding pass and found that her seat was the window seat one row up and across the plane. I happily agreed to still trade him and got a window seat (my favorite). I ate my peanut butter sandwich and Granny Smith apple while taking off. We had some turbulence, but it wasn't horrible. I spent most of the flight reading. I got a whole can of tomato juice. The little boy sitting behind me spent about one quarter of the 2.5 hour flight kicking the back of my seat and poking me with his feet under the back of my seat. It is not every economy flight that you get a vibrating, massaging seat! Haha! I could see cruise ships (I think) as we flew over the Gulf of Mexico. It looks pretty grey and rainy from up here and the captain told us it had been raining in Guatemala City. Hopefully it warms up there and the sun comes put!
When we got to the airport, we passed through customs and immigration just fine, and I was relieved to see that my new backpack made it without a scratch. We headed outside and found Eric holding a sign with our names on it. He went to fetch the car and we drove to Antigua. The sky was mostly cloudy, but it was not raining and felt decently warm. I spoke with Eric in Spanish and was glad to see that my Spanish was starting to come back. He dropped us off at Elvira and Enrique´s where Enrique let us in. We are staying in the room across from the birds so we will be waking up at 6am tomorrow! We talked wtih E & E and they gave us directions to a good bank. We went and changed money for Christiana and I got money from an ATM (kind of). We put our money back at the house and went to the internet cafe down the street for 15 minutes. We will be heading back for dinner in a minute.
We had dinner and met the other people living in out house. Steffi is from Texas and will be leaving on Monday. She is very talkative. Her husband is coming to Guatemala so they are going to stay in a hotel. Amanda is a speech therapist who will be here for almost a year.
Plans for tomorrow include finding our Spanish school and making sure everything is set up there, registering at Hermano Pedro hospital where we are going to volunteer, and maybe taking a tour of a coffee plantation. Saturday we will probably head to Lake Atitlan.
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