Lost In Translation

Monday morning 6:30 A.M. my new P.I.C. (partner in crime) or should I say P.I.A.C. (partner in avoiding crime) get off of our overnight flight from Chicago to Guatemala City. The flight itself was fine, the 10 hour layover was exhausting. We clear customs no problem which is a huge change for me I usually get the full on interogation, I didn't even have to wait in line they let us right through. This was probably because Kara (P.I.C.) had no bags, somehow they never left the Toronto airport, I would have died she handled it very well, remember we didn't have carry ons. We are greeted outside by 2 very small but very friendly people Javier and Sheila. I instantly notice how small the Guatemalans are, I could possibly be descibed as TALL!!! compared to the women here. It's wonderful, they all walk around in 4 inch heals and I am still taller than them! WOOT WOOT! This has never happened to me before I am very excited!

On our drive from the airport I come to understand the phenomenon I had been reading about. Guatemal city has these buses they call "Chicken Buses" I never understood this term until I saw them. They literally look like those truck boxes transporting chickens they are so packed full of people. I will take a pictures soon. I have been told I am not allowed to ride these buses because they are so dangerous. Apparently they are all independently run and are known to have someone come on the bus shoot the driver and take the money and run. I still would like to experience these one day . . . I may take one to Antigua sometime apparently these are the safer ones.

We arrive at our apartment building to find out it is an old hotel they have converted into apartments. It is called the El Cortijo and I live on the 13th floor . . . but in the elevator it isn't actually the 13th floor the button doesn't actually say 13 and the numbers that light up above the door don't light up on when I get to 13. The apartment itself is pretty awesome, it's probably the size of the little brick houses a family of 5 would live in here, so I think I lucked out.

The best part . . . the closet!

The bathroom . . . no tub!
The living room . . .

The view from my balcony. The photo in the middle shows the volcanoe. Sweet I know!

After dropping our belongings off at our apartments we went for breakfast at a restaurant that is in an aquarium, it was pretty cool and apparently one of the most popular restaurants in the city. We were then dropped back off at our appartments and spent the rest of our afternoon "lost in translation". Our first challenge was finding a grocery store . . . these two little Gringas walking down the street towards Zone 4 (approaching sketchy) who maybe speak 6 words of spanish between us trying to ignore the cat calls and street merchants as we go. "The food smells great but don't eat it" we have been told! Groceries were a semisuccess except for the phone card we needed to purchase. We had to return home. unload, pull out the phrase book and proceed out again. I thought it would be something like Mexico where you can get by with your English . . . but there is no way . . . very few people actually speak English in this city. Even with our attempt at Spanish the phone card took about 5 merchants before someone actually understood what we were saying. On the plus side Q75 about $10 CDN seems to last a long time considering I have been making international calls.

All is well I will blog about more later.