I made it!

(I actually wrote this first entry the day after I got here (Friday), but didn't get around to uploading it until today.... already behind the curve!!)

Greetings to all from La Antigua Guatemala……. After only a slight delay on the first flight of my trip, I arrived safe and sound in Guatemala City…. “sin problema” as they say. My driver from the airport was a woman (first time for that in Guatemala) and her two teenagers. They were all very nice, and we chatted quite a bit. It felt good to slowly get back into thinking in Spanish. Turns out the kids are taking extracurricular English classes, and it was fun hearing them try out some of their salutations upon dropping me at my hotel.

I didn’t get in that late, but had a little trouble settling down to go to sleep. Channel surfing on the TV didn’t help much, but was pretty entertaining (“I Dream of Jeannie” in Spanish is a kick - I didn’t even know Barbara Eden was bilingual). Any way, I was able to get to sleep about 1AM, and then the neighborhood rooster and the church bells across the street woke me up at the crack of dawn - I think I’m going to need a siesta this afternoon.

When Mary and I were here in February, we got to hit all the tourist highlights and get a lot of the historic background of Antigua, a very pretty and interesting colonial city. This time, I’m hoping to use the few days I have to delve a little deeper into various facets of the city, mostly checking out the numerous ruins of classic churches and buildings around town (due to the numerous earthquakes over the centuries). There is also a very old, large house that has been completely restored (and is still the residence of the daughters of the man who restored it, an official of the large banana company which dominated this country for years). And, there is an old Capuchin cloister which provides an interesting look at how the poor young ladies who stayed there lived from day to day (what with wooden beds and straw pillows and all).

I can’t quite believe I’m entering the blogosphere (don’t worry no punditry allowed here). I’m hoping to be able to keep it up to some degree over the coming weeks, as I won’t have much time for individual emails. Also, this way I won’t be clogging up your inbox - you can just check in as little or as much as you want. Tune in to see if I can keep at it!