So we rolled into Xela around 5 pm after a 7 hr bus ride through some seriously formidable mountains. Good thing these guys don´t get any snow because wow. Just figured out during that sentence how to accent my letters (I´m typing on a keyboard de español, after all). Every one of these keyboards is a little different, but this place has nice computers (running Vista) and a decent price so I think I´ll try to frequent it.
It´s hard to remember all the things I wanted to say now, sitting at a computer. Feels farther away than the Xela just outside the door.
So...um, school begins at 8 and runs til 1. My professor keeps calling me "sueño," which means sleepy. This is because I´m yawning all the time. I mean, it is several hours of Spanish, after all. Also, I took likely the hardest Spanish exam of my life this morning; it was a placement exam and whew, boy, did I ever bomb that thing.
This town, though, like Guatemala City before it, is gorgeous. It sits at around 12,000 feet, inside a huge volcanic crater something like 3,000 ft across. Like I said above, the roads leading up to Xela are a winding twisting beautiful mess. I think we took the Pan-American Highway, but I can't find out for sure -- but once you reach the summit, the road drops down as sharply as it twisted up and you find yourself looking at a huge sprawling plane ringed in gargantuan mountains with looming Santa María and smoking live Santiaguito to the south. (Sorry, I´ve been reading my travel guide a lot.)
Yeah, but all that happened two days ago. Feels like I´ve been here for a month or something - there´s just been so much around us. There´s the host family, the trips around town, and going out last night all to talk about. In the span of two days, it really does feel like a lot.
My family is good, mom - you´ll be glad to know that. There are two grandparents (los abuelos), a mother named María and her two children 4 yr old Luis and 8 yr old Deborah. All are pretty cool.
Anyway, I´m running real close to the 45 minute mark, after which I´ll have to pay another, oh, quetzal for the time. Which is something like 20 cents.
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2 comments:
Good to hear from you again. sounds like you've got alot of Spanish to absorb. Your dad and Shane have gotten alot of fencing done in this wet weather. 2 more days. It's beautiful here today. Take care and lots of love.
Mountains sound cool-inside a crator awesome-i've called u sleepy for years. I'll send u 20 cents if run over. Can tell your into it-good !
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