And then there were four...

I had the great opportunity to head back to the states last week on Tuesday and stay for a week. It was exhausting! But I'm so glad I got to see so many people in such a short time. I've already told you about my long day of travel to get home, now let me tell you about my crazy week back home.

After spending too much time in transit, I had a very busy Wednesday full of familiar faces. Hanging out with Sarah Sheps making delicious goodness, an attempt at ultimate frisbee that really just turned into running around like crazy people and freezing, playing games and eating said delicious goodness back at home with more familiar faces, and finished off with dinner with Seth's parents. Thursday morning was a little bit more relaxed, but still busy trying to make sure I had everything I needed for my mom's wedding and then we headed up north in the afternoon. We spent all of 5 minutes at Josh and Jenna's before leaving for the reptile zoo (so cool!!) and capped it off with sandwiches at the Sultan bakery (you haven't been there? you must go!). Friday was a whirlwind of skyping with Seth before he peaced out to Russia, rushing to the church before the secretary left so that we could let my mom in when she brought the cakes, going to a nail salon that cost way too much money (but my nails will be purple forever!! or at least until they grow themselves clean), running to a St Vincent De Paul to buy a swimming suit so that I could rock the hot-tub at Rachel's hotel (btw, if you've never gone shopping with my niece, Mina, you have to, she's simply adorable!! She'd climb through the clothes to get to the other side of the rack, then tell me to come too, I'd tell her I was too big and she'd tell me to try it, I fit, and then she'd say, "You fit just like me!"), rehearsal dinner and rehearsal, then I passed out on Josh's living room floor. Saturday was the wedding day and everything went great and it was beautiful and the reception was great and it was sunny outside and relatively warm (a HUGE difference from the giant snowflakes from the day before!), and after cleaning everything up I jetted down to camp to visit the Millers and Carol (and Rory, but I'd already seen him, so I don't know if he really counts again, haha!). Left camp pretty late and crashed as soon as I got home. I hit up the early service at First Pres, then sped over to the service at South Lakeshore. Right after church I had to meet Tim, Rachel, Mina, Steve, and Jonathan at Pt D to hang out for a bit, then speed over to Tukwila to meet some friends for lunch, then race back home to hang out with Josh and Jenna and Jaxon again. Monday was fairly chill, just some last-minute stuff I had to pick up and Steve hosted a Passover Seder at our house and then I went to bed. Then Tuesday it was back to the airport. We made it to Guate and stayed in a hotel there, then took a bus yesterday morning to Xela. We did a hike this morning and then picked up Steve from the bus station this evening. Now we just get to enjoy the holy week processionals!
So my vacation week was probably anything but a vacation, but it was so great to be back home (even if it was only for a few days) and now I'm so excited to have my dad, BK, and Steve here to explore with me. Also, I have four parents now....that's weird, but I'm super stoked for my mom and Mark, I can't wait to actually get to spend some time with them when I get back home for good. :)

Santiaguito erupting at the top of our hike this morning 

A long day of travel

As most of you know, I'm back in the states for a week for my mom's wedding. I traveled all day on Tuesday. Like actually. Here's the story of my full day of travel:

I woke up at 3:05AM (Central American time, that means 1 hour ahead of Washington) and I ate breakfast (pancakes I'd made from the day before) and finished up packing last-minute things and I was leaving my apartment in Xela by 3:55AM. I walked from my apartment to the Alamo bus station (it's about a 10-15 minute walk) and the streets were dead empty. It was comforting to know that it's not every day that there are a bunch of drunk people wandering the streets at way-too-early in the morning (another story for another time), but it was also really weird that there was no one. Well I got to the station and awaited my 4:30 bus to Guatemala city. Now, there are chicken buses which are old U.S. school buses that have been pimped out and go flying down mountain curves, but Alamo buses are like the Greyhound. They're nice charter buses with comfy seats, only one person per seat, they don't fly down the road and they go more direct. The bus ride was wonderful! We never stopped to pick anyone extra up and we only stopped a couple times before the Alamo station in Guate to drop a couple people off. It was maybe like 8:45AM when we got to the station in Guate and I hopped into a taxi to go to the airport. Just in case you're wondering, the taxi price was outrageous!! I paid Q62 for my 4-hour bus ride and Q50 for my 20-minute taxi ride. Dumb! But the driver was a really nice guy and we had a nice chat while sitting in terrible Guate traffic. I got to the airport at about 9:15 and had to wait for the United Airlines desk to open so that I could check-in.
[There's something you should know about me: I'm paranoid about being late for travel transportation. I really could have taken a bus from Xela at 6:30AM, not 4:30, but I wanted to make sure I'd have plenty of time just in case something went wrong with the bus or something] I got checked in and moved onto exit customs. I had overstayed my tourist visa by 8 days so I had to go to a different window so that they could write me a fine (Q10 per day overstayed). From there I had to go back upstairs to pay the fine at the bank, then back down to the fine window so that they could sign-off and back to the customs guy. At first he only talked to me in Spanish, but when I came back the second time he only spoke to me in English. Haha!
I got to security and still had a half-full water bottle. I thought there would be a bathroom before security, but there wasn't. I told the security guy that I still had water and I needed to empty it or drink it and he said (in Spanish) that I could drink it on the other side of security or I could take it to the bathroom on the other side of security to dump it out...either way, I could pass through security with my water. On the other side of the metal detector there was a security lady who saw my bottle and said (in English) "yours?" I said yes and she said "drink it, now!" Ummm, so the other guy was a lot nicer.
[Another thing you should know about me: I almost always have to pee, and this was no exception...so drinking half of a nalgene bottle full of water was kinda miserable]
I got to my gate and waited. There's no AC in the Guate airport, so it was cookin! Finally got onto the plane and I was sitting next to two guys, one about my age from Austen, and the other about 65 from Puyallup. We chatted throughout the whole flight and waited in customs in Houston together. We all had about a 2.5 hour layover, but customs took FOREVER so by the time we got to our gates we had about 10 minutes before boarding. But anyways, we waited in customs together and when we parted ways (the guy from Austen had a gate in the opposite direction from where Puyallup and I had to go) we actually introduced ourselves. So we spent an entire flight and 2 hours in customs chatting without knowing each others names, I love how that's totally normal when traveling!
On the way to our gate, Dwight (the guy from Puyallup, whose name I now knew), offered to buy me a coke or something for helping him out with navigating the Houston airport and customs. I declined, but he was hungry so we stopped at a taco restaurant with tacos 2 for $8 (for reals!! Tacos in Xela are 3 for Q10, which is about $1.30) and he said I could have the other since he only wanted one. So we had the most expensive tacos ever and then boarded our flight. We weren't sitting together on this one. I slept for most of the flight because by this time it was about 7PM Central American time and I was pooped. We arrived in Seatac at about 10:30PM PST and made our way over to the baggage claim (somehow it always works out that the gate you fly into is basically the furthest it could possibly be from baggage claim and your carousel for baggage claim is the one on the furthest end). My cousin, Jonathan, was already there waiting for me and then Alex came in too, we finally got my bag and I said bye to Dwight. He was hoping my dad would be there to pick me up so that he could tell him what a nice young lady I was. How sweet! But anyways, I said bye and then we headed outside. It's freezing cold here!!! But we headed to McDonald's to get shamrock shakes because it's tradition! Fenda met us at McDonald's and we were stoked to see each other. :) We headed back to my house and got there at about midnight (so 1AM central American time) and stayed up to eat some food and chat some more. I think I finally went to sleep around 2AM PST...and had to get up early-ish for a dentist appointment the next morning.
Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of traveling all day long...but I was so happy to be home for a bit! The Houston airport is probably one of my least favorite places in the world, but I survived it and I'll survive it twice more within the next 8 months. It's weird being back, but it definitely feels like home. :)

You know you're not in the US when....

This is by no means a complete list, and I'll probably be adding to it every now and then as I experience more things that make me positive that I'm not in the United States. I hope these things make you want to come see Guatemala and they don't scare you into staying in the states forever. Most of these things I find comical, not terrible. :)

You know you're not in the United States when.....

1. ...every security guard carries a big shotgun
2. ...when the road is blocked, your bus just turns down a one-way street (the wrong way!) and drives backwards until they get to somewhere they can turn
3. ...no girl, drop dead gorgeous or average, can walk down the street without receiving a honk, whistle, or some sort of comment
4. ...you're on an old school bus with three fully-grown adults on each seat. The two people aisle-side only have half of their butt on the seat and the only way they stay on the seat is by using the resistance from the person across the aisle from them. You get super stoked when a seat has two smaller people in it so when they make room for you, you can fit 3/4 of your butt on the seat.
5. ...you're outraged when something is "expensive" (by which I mean, it's a special treat to buy a gigantic burger for Q40 a.k.a. $5....a Q50 burger is way out of my price-range!)
6. ...the locals get charged way less for things than visitors (I went to Laguna Chicabal and you have to pay to get into the park, it's Q1 for locals, Q5 for nationals, and Q15 for internationals!!!)
7. ...you can catch a bus from any point along the route; just wave it down and it'll stop for you
8. ...being 45 minutes late for everything is normal
9. ...Netflix makes you have Spanish subtitles on many of their offered titles (like actually, there's no option to turn them off on a lot of the shows!!!)
10. ...you can directly pay a police officer a fraction of your fine to convince them not to give you the fine in the first place
11. ...most people don't shake hands with women, they do the cheek kiss thing
12. ...sending something from the post office doesn't necessarily mean it will arrive at its destination
13. ...no one drinks the tap water
14. ...everything is negotiable
15. ...every door to the outside is a metal door
16. ...the number of seats on a bus by no means dictates how many people can "fit." Usually the "maximum occupancy" is 1/3 of the number of people who will cram their way on
17. ...most of the foreigners are just passing through
18. ...internet and electricity are not necessities of life, they come and go as they please
19. ...you always have to ask for your check at a restaurant
20. ...a prepaid cell phone is the norm, having a plan is strange
21. ...you get nervous when you get into someone's car and they have their seat belt on
22. ...it's totally fine that there's an empty beer can in the back seat of someone's car
23. ...flaggers for road construction don't have walkie-talkies, they just guess when it's safe for you to go