2 days until brooklyntenango
dear real life world i know and love,
i like it here. this week has been fast and happy and temperate. it feels nothing like shabbes right now, though it is definitively friday night. aleza and i sit in what i would call an internet cafe, though i think it is more of a computer lab on the corner of avenida 11 and calle 1 in quetzaltenango/xela. i think we are going to celebrate the end of the week with a sigh and some wine and maybe cheese and bread at some place here that purports to have these things, along with music and poetry.
vacation is a nice thing. i will now list other things that are nice this week:
* 3 hour yoga class outside in a cool gazebo thing.
* plato typico - the breakfast version everyday. in guatemala (and apparently the rest of central america) this means fried eggs, black beans, fried plantains, tortillas, and coffee. mostly bad coffee, but still. sometimes there is sweet cream that is somewhere between whipped cream and sour cream to dip the plantains in. sometimes there is salsa. today there were not tortillas, but tamalitos. white and yellow and blue corn tamalitos. i am at the point of forcing myself to eat this everyday, but it is still so yummy.
* cheap, awesome massage. finding out that my back is doing interesting things to compensate for the scoliosis i rarely think about anymore.
* learning spanish! and becoming less intimidated to say things to people and listen in on aleza´s conversations with locals and actually understand things. making up what i don´t understand.
* learning about mudslides. this is more of a sad thing than a nice thing.
* climbing up hills and wearing the same thing all the time.
* being self-destructive with coffee and hand-rolled cigarettes and brewing over minutias of sex, food, and politics everyday with aleza for several hours daily roughly from 4 - 7 pm.
* carefully selected street food experimentation. fried things, mostly, but also passion fruit.
* remembering my dreams.
* cities and towns all surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. a very blue lake and many boat rides across it.
* practicing french very very poorly with french restauranteurs.
* loud scary dogs at night.
* barking contests from dogs on rooftops. one peeking out of an opening of a stone wall to another fiercely yelping in its dalmatian regalness across the callejon.
* an old chocolate factory, now a cafe called luna.
* calla lilies.
* warmness. mist. amazing amazing clouds. pretty churches. witnessing intense religious devotion before the end of lent.
* learning how to be a more skilled traveler.
* feeling detached from work and midtown crappiness.
* markets that never end.
* it smells like fried chicken in lots of places.
* singing and sweating in a sauna that looked like an oven for hansel and gretel. dark and a little worrisome at first. then awesome.
* struggling through a really cold shower and feeling like it was a ¨whatever doesn´t kill you makes you stronger¨ kind of experience.
i´ll be home late on sunday night. until then, hopefully more and different and beautiful things. like maybe climing los vajos. maybe antigua. maybe more papas fritas.
love in a white dress and gray sweater reeking of lots of stimulants,
mich
i like it here. this week has been fast and happy and temperate. it feels nothing like shabbes right now, though it is definitively friday night. aleza and i sit in what i would call an internet cafe, though i think it is more of a computer lab on the corner of avenida 11 and calle 1 in quetzaltenango/xela. i think we are going to celebrate the end of the week with a sigh and some wine and maybe cheese and bread at some place here that purports to have these things, along with music and poetry.
vacation is a nice thing. i will now list other things that are nice this week:
* 3 hour yoga class outside in a cool gazebo thing.
* plato typico - the breakfast version everyday. in guatemala (and apparently the rest of central america) this means fried eggs, black beans, fried plantains, tortillas, and coffee. mostly bad coffee, but still. sometimes there is sweet cream that is somewhere between whipped cream and sour cream to dip the plantains in. sometimes there is salsa. today there were not tortillas, but tamalitos. white and yellow and blue corn tamalitos. i am at the point of forcing myself to eat this everyday, but it is still so yummy.
* cheap, awesome massage. finding out that my back is doing interesting things to compensate for the scoliosis i rarely think about anymore.
* learning spanish! and becoming less intimidated to say things to people and listen in on aleza´s conversations with locals and actually understand things. making up what i don´t understand.
* learning about mudslides. this is more of a sad thing than a nice thing.
* climbing up hills and wearing the same thing all the time.
* being self-destructive with coffee and hand-rolled cigarettes and brewing over minutias of sex, food, and politics everyday with aleza for several hours daily roughly from 4 - 7 pm.
* carefully selected street food experimentation. fried things, mostly, but also passion fruit.
* remembering my dreams.
* cities and towns all surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. a very blue lake and many boat rides across it.
* practicing french very very poorly with french restauranteurs.
* loud scary dogs at night.
* barking contests from dogs on rooftops. one peeking out of an opening of a stone wall to another fiercely yelping in its dalmatian regalness across the callejon.
* an old chocolate factory, now a cafe called luna.
* calla lilies.
* warmness. mist. amazing amazing clouds. pretty churches. witnessing intense religious devotion before the end of lent.
* learning how to be a more skilled traveler.
* feeling detached from work and midtown crappiness.
* markets that never end.
* it smells like fried chicken in lots of places.
* singing and sweating in a sauna that looked like an oven for hansel and gretel. dark and a little worrisome at first. then awesome.
* struggling through a really cold shower and feeling like it was a ¨whatever doesn´t kill you makes you stronger¨ kind of experience.
i´ll be home late on sunday night. until then, hopefully more and different and beautiful things. like maybe climing los vajos. maybe antigua. maybe more papas fritas.
love in a white dress and gray sweater reeking of lots of stimulants,
mich