I've decided that working at camp all those years has ruined me! Well, not ruined me, but it's made it really hard for me to cook for only myself. I start cooking way too early, so that when my food is ready I'm not hungry yet, but if I wait until I'm hungry my food will be cold and it's never as good microwaved. I cook way too much food! Last night I made enough stir fried veggies and fried rice for 4 people, but the container I have only fit about half the food so I had to make myself eat all the rest (first world problems in a third world nation). Then there's shopping for the food....how am I supposed to know what I'm going to want to eat for the next few days?! Also, how am I supposed to carry it all home?! It's so weird only buying like 2 cucumbers and a pound of oatmeal. I think we buy 25-pound bags of oatmeal for camp (or is it 50? I can't remember...I just know it's giant!).
But I think it's mostly just the quantity thing that messes me up all the time. I would totally just make a ton and have leftovers for the next few days, but my allotted space in the fridge is small and there aren't really any containers to put stuff in in my shared kitchen. I would buy some, but then I either have to leave them here or take them with me when I move again....that sounds like a pain. And they're expensive. Well, if converted to US$ then they're not, but I'm trying to live the life of the Q, so they're expensive. I think I need to make some good friends and rent a house with them here so we can do meals together, then I'd cook the right amount and I wouldn't have to cook three meals a day (and I'd also get to live with my friends). Win, win, and win again! Or I could just get this whole cooking for one thing down. But we all know that the moment I become pro-status at just cooking for myself I'll be back home and Steve will want me to share with him all the yummy stuff I cook. Again, first world problems. When I was staying with a family down here, they never had leftovers! Somehow they always made the perfect amount of food for everyone...and they always had a different number of people at every meal! Maybe I should hang out with them more and have them teach me their ways, but I still don't think that would help with the whole cooking for only myself thing.
I looked up ideas on pinterest (yes, Carol, you've turned me into someone who turns to pinterest for ideas!) for easy/not boring meals for one. There were a lot of good ideas, but a lot of the ingredients on the "ideal shopping lists" were things that seem a little hard to find here/more expensive since it'd all be imported. I wonder if there's a Guatemalan pinterest. Hmmm...I could make millions off this idea! Or maybe not. Anyways, I'm thinking I'll get pretty good at cooking for one eventually...and then I'll invite you over for dinner and you'll leave starving. So maybe I should have to over for a potluck, then if you leave starving it'll be partially your fault too.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
There ends that adventure. Now, onto the next!
In addition to finishing up my classes yesterday, I also moved! I'm now renting a room on the third floor of a building that's a block away from the central park. There are 5 rooms up here and we all have our own bathrooms, but we share a kitchen and a pretty sweet balcony (I'm just going to say right now that I'll be spending a lot of time on the balcony reading/chillaxing). The room is kinda small, but I don't have that much stuff so it's all good. I now also have to make all my own food (I think I was spoiled the last 4 weeks by having all my food made for me by my host family), so tomorrow I've got to go to the street market and get a bunch of fruits and veggies and probably some chicken. So far all I have to eat is fruit, peanut butter, and yogurt...somehow I don't think that will sustain me for the next few months.
Today I went with some students from the Spanish school to climb the Santa Maria Volcano....I'm so glad I did it, but I'm never doing it again. We met at the school at 5AM so that we could get started on the climb by 5:30 because apparently you get better views if you're there earlier in the day. Well the volcano is a little over 1000m higher than Xela and it was pretty steep the whole time. Our guide (a.k.a. Jorge, one of the teachers at the school) said it'd be 3-ish hours to get to the top. I'd heard 4 from multiple people beforehand so I was pleasantly surprised. It took me 4.5 hours to get to the top, but in my defense, I don't even do hikes in Washington where the elevation is pretty close to sea level, this was much higher. But up top it was so pretty!! We were on the same level/above the clouds and it was so cool to just look out and see a carpet of clouds in front of me. We were supposed to be able to see another volcano that has little eruptions every hour or so, but it was too cloudy to see it. Bummer. Anyways, it was gorgeous! It's one of those things that I highly recommend, but I won't accompany you if you go.
Monday marks the beginning of my "new adventures." I'll be going outdoor climbing with a tour group called Quetzaltrekkers at this place called La Muela (it means "the molar") and I'll begin impatiently waiting for a local English school to call me and tell me that they have a student for me. I gave my information to the school on Thursday and the lady said she'd call me as soon as she had a student for me...I don't really know what that means. But I hope it's soon! She said they just re-opened since Christmas and New Years so they should be getting students soon. But until I hear from her I think I'll be exploring Xela a bit more since I've really only seen the areas between my homestay house and my school, plus a couple other places. So here I go, off on some new exploring adventures! :)
Thursday, January 3, 2013
New Years...and cooking class :)
Holy cow! I can't believe it's already the third day of 2013! New years here is a really big deal...everyone has a party! I went with a few people from the Spanish school to get some dinner (I ordered the super nachos....they definitely should NOT be in the appetizer section of the menu!) and then we went to hang out on the rooftop terrace at a couple's apartment building. It was amazing!! You can see the whole city from up there and so when all the fireworks started to go off you could look in every direction and see them. And a bunch of people had paper lanterns and let them float up into the air and my friend Fraser and I both really wanted one but only one actually landed on the roof that we were on, so we were going to fight to the death for it but then this other lady that we'd just met swooped in and took it. Lame sauce! But really, what would we have done with it later? But it was really a great view up there! And then afterwards the people I was with wanted to go dancing at a club so we went to this super loud discoteca with hardly anyone inside (but we didn't know that until after we paid the cover) and I only stayed for about an hour and a half because I was getting super tired...but my ears were still ringing for at least 45 minutes after I left.
Then there was a really cool processional through the street on New years night and I guess it's a Mayan tradition to have this every year. There were so many people involved and a bunch of people in costumes dancing through the street and they were carrying a big display thing with really pretty statues on it. It was super cool! And, of course, there were a ton of fireworks. I'm pretty sure there are always fireworks going off here...or maybe it's just because I've only been here around Christmas and New years. I don't know...all I know is that I can almost always here some fireworks going off somewhere.
Today was cooking class at my school and we made chilis rellenos. So yummy!! I think I have an unfair advantage because I live with the teacher, so I got to see pretty much the whole process...but it takes quite a while to make them so Lili just brought the filling (pre-made) and the peppers (pre-cooked) and then we just had to fill them, batter them, and fry them. And, of course, eat them!! I think that cooking class is my favorite because we get to eat afterwards. :) Two weeks ago we made empanadas with a chicken filling, but I think I like the chilis rellenos better because they felt so light! The batter is egg whites, so maybe that's why they seem so much lighter than bready empanadas. But either way, I love learning to make these things and getting to eat them afterwards!
My brain is so full of verbs and verb tenses that I think I might explode! Sometimes I think that my teacher is crazy because she expects me to remember every verb that she's ever taught me, even if it was just in passing, and every tense conjugation of every verb that she's ever taught me, especially the irregular verbs. Funny thing though, all the irregular verbs have irregular conjugations...yet somehow I'm supposed to remember them all. Also, I think she thinks she knows my life/what I like/what I should do with my life better than I do. But it's not a big deal! She's teaching me a ton and I'm learning a ton and I still can't really believe that I'm actually here in Guatemala learning Spanish and living with a family that I just met. It's pretty incredible! I have one week and one day left of Spanish classes and then I'm out in the real world. Hopefully I can set up some sort of job teaching English before then, but at least, as of today, I've found a place to live after I'm done studying!
I still haven't gone rock climbing. Apparently the gym here takes holiday during Christmas and New years, so I'm planning to try again on Saturday. Hopefully I can make some climbing friends who will take me to la muela (the molar...it's an outdoor climbing place here) so I don't have to pay Q300 every time I want to go with Quetzaltrekkers (a tour company that takes a trip to la muela to climb).
In other news, I just met a new student today who's starting classes tomorrow who is only 19...so I'm no longer the youngest student at Utatlan!!! My teacher is always telling me I'm the school baby........pretty much the story of my life! But yeah, my fellow students are awesome and I love hanging out with them at different school activities and running into them here in town. It's great! But it's also kind of lame that everyone leaves within a couple weeks. ¡Asà es la vida!
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