Antigua - Island, City, or spanish antiques?

After blogging about two trips to Africa, I figure this blog could use a little spicing* up, so today´s entry begins my Guatemala adventure. Before starting med/dental school, Liz and I decided to travel to Guatemala. This of course was before we knew about its minor crime problem (only in Guatemala City).  But seriously, we arrived yesterday and our driver brought us straight to our homestay family in Antigua. The town is nestled between multiple volcanoes and nearly all the buildings are one story because of the area´s proclivity for earthquakes. But I digress...

The town of Antigua is a sleepy town of 50,000 Guatemalans that plays host to hundreds of Spanish language schools and many gringos here for vacation, study, and/or volunteer work. The buildings are painted in bright colors, Mayan women walk the streets in traditional garb, all the roads are cobblestone, and it is incredibly safe. Liz and I are staying with a fantastic homestay family, Jaime and Sylvia Gordilla. They only speak Spanish, which is surprisingly easy to understand, and serve us delicious food for every meal. We are staying in a small guesthouse with another student from the school, Jacob, who is a pilot for a Net Jets-esque company.

This week we are only taking Spanish class in the afternoon so this morning Liz and I walked around the town, searching for our language school for nearly an hour. Then we decided to look at our map, and realized we had been making circles in the wrong section of town. We finally found the school (literally a straight shot down 4 blocks from our house) and finished registering for classes. We then went to check out a nearby church, La Merced. Like most of the rest of the town, it was built in the mid 1500´s, destroyed by an earthquake, (rebuilt, destroyed by an earthquake) X 2, and finally rebuilt after the earthquake in 1976. It has a gorgeous, intricate exterior and our guidebook talked about the tunnel that was built connecting it to the church in the Parque Central (3 blocks away) so the nuns wouldn´t have to be seen when they walked between the churches. We looked high and low for the tunnel to no avail, until Liz spotted some steps going downstairs with a sign that said Sanitorios. Giving her the benefit of my doubt, I rationalized - Sanitorios, oh like Sanitorium for TB patients, the tunnel is isolated and so they must have kept TB patients down there in the past - I was wrong. We tried paying 3 Quetzals ($0.38) until the lady handed us two bundles of toilet paper. Then we realized our mistake and that while it may have been the tunnel connecting the churches in the past, it was now most definitely a baño. Laughing, we made our way to the Parque Central where the central fountain is this amazing creation where the water literally spouts from the nipples of mermaids.

After a terrific lunch of guacemole, spaghetti, burger/meat patty, and peppers*, we started our language training. My lovely teacher Ana couldn´t get over the fact that I had "studied" French for 15+ years and could still barely speak it (however I have understood much more than I expected to). She was also intrigued by my contrast of Nueva York and Carolina del Norte, but I am not sure just how intriguing I could have been with my limited stable of 20 vocabulary words that were listed in front of me. But I do feel as though I learned a lot today and I can´t wait to return tomorrow. I am sure that Liz also had a great lesson but we are not talking about it much because we would probably get competitve and I know that she would win (only because she´s better at languages though). I apologize for cutting this post short but after being scolded for showing up for breakfast 5 minutes late (the time it took me to get out of bed), we have to rush home in time for dinner. Stay tuned for more updates!

*speaking of spices, i ate one seed of a completely harmless looking yellow/orange pepper at lunch and couldn´t feel the right side of my tongue or right upper lip for the next half hour. Oh and my throat was singed. I am literally spicing up my life.