Day Two, Antigua

Artisan's Market, Antigua Guatemala

Our host family has breakfast for us at 7am, lunch at 12:30, and dinner at 6:30 every Monday-Saturday, but on Sunday we have to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner for ourselves; so our first full day in Antigua we had to fend for ourselves. Gloria and I met with several of the other students at a Basketball court near our homes in the morning and we all headed out to exchange money and get some breakfast. 

I had exchanged money already in Boston, so I didn't need to get anymore that morning, but I tagged along to help locate the bank recommended to us. In Antigua, to get quetzales, Guatemalan currency, you can either take it directly from your checking account at an ATM or you can exchange dollars directly for quetzales. If you exchange dollars for quetzales you have to bring your passport with you to the bank to prove you are an international traveler whereas at an ATM you only need your debit card. Sunday morning the students who needed to exchange money forgot to bring with them their passports for the bank, so when we got there we couldn’t do anything. After we left the bank we decided to go back to the Casa and drop off some of our stuff into the locker they are providing. At 11am the Casa was providing coffee and snack for the host families we were all staying with so that they could meet the directors and get a tour of the school we were all attending. We all were able to grab some of the snacks and drinks they provided. For a little bit we all hung out at the Casa, talked, and got to know each other.

After a while several of the students wanted to go to the market to get some hangers. Since I had been here before I had suggested a clothing market we called the Pacca (?) while we were here back in March. After hanging out at the Casa several of us walked over to the market of Antigua and started looking around. Instead of going to the Pacca, everyone was interested in the artisan market so we made a detour from the vendors market into the building that houses the artisan market. For a while we all wandered around and looked at the wares. We ended up all getting lost at some point and we had to call each other to figure out where to go to meet up with the rest of the group. It also started to rain a little bit and we all got a sense of what the rain here was going to be like. After a while some of the group moved off into smaller groups and some people joined the main group.

After we left the artisan market we headed to the supermarket to look around for some things we needed for classes in a couple of days. We all managed to get lost and found again, but we all got a sense of what was offered at the supermarket. We then started talking about what we all wanted to do for dinner. I suggested a place that I had gone to with my group from March called Monoloco (crazy monkey). The owner is from the states and the restaurant incorporates some USA sports bar attributes. We met up with more students in the Central Plaza and everyone decided to let me take them to Monoloco. I wasn’t sure where the restaurant was, so we headed to the Casa to ask Milady for directions and also to see if any of the other students there wanted to join us for dinner. Several more students we at the Casa so we got directions, called the rest of the students, all met up at the Casa, then headed out to Monoloco for dinner.

We were a fairly large group at this point; we were missing only two students from the whole group, so we all sat at two different tables right next to each other. At one table everyone got their own meal and separate checks. At the other table they ordered large nachos for the entire table and split the bill at the end. Both methods worked just fine and everyone seemed to be happy with their dinner. One thing that was very obvious was that almost everyone felt that the place was too expensive. What they had trouble with was the exchange rate; everything was in quetzales which is a 7.7 to 1 exchange rate with the US dollar (one US dollar equals 7.7 quetzales). All of the dinners were Q55, or Q66, etc. which is actually less than ten dollars ($10=Q77). And on top of that the meals are really big, so you are getting a lot of food for every few dollars.

At dinner most of the students spoke to each other in Spanish to practice. As someone at the very beginning of learning Spanish, I mostly listened and tried to understand what they were saying using context clues. We also spoke in English and got to know each other even more. I spoke to one student, Nancy, about my reasoning for coming to the program and told her a little bit about what I know about the teachers and Antigua. We all got along really well and enjoyed getting to know each other better over a meal.

After we left Monoloco, we all walked to the Casa as a reference point for all of us to find our ways home. Gloria and I walked with two other students who live near us in the northern part of Antigua. When we got back to our home stay and I dumped out my bag I realized I had lost my phone. We were all provided with Guatemalan phones by the program and if we lost them we had to buy new ones so I was upset that I had already lost my phone in under a day. Gloria and I ended up walking all the way back to Monoloco and stopping at the Casa to see if I had simply left it somewhere. Unfortunately we didn’t find it, and so I went home empty handed.