April Fools!

JUST KIDDING. Happy late April Fools y'all. Thanks to the generosity of my awesome parents, I got to stay an extra week. Yay! Está bien. They also let me go away this weekend, which was extra cool. yayayayay. There are a lot of newbies now, which is weird and overwhelming, but luckily, a small chunk of my orig group is still here, so it's decent.

So anyways, I cannot possibly recount all the hilarious and sad things my new old lady friends have said to me because there are always so many gems. Shonita told me today that all Guatemalan men are monkeys. lol. They kind of are gross when they whistle and stare, so good call, mi amiga. I have started talking to a woman named Fabiana recently, and we don't have the most cheerful conversations, but always super intelligent. I wish I could clearly understand everything she says to me, but I only really catch the gist. It's enough most of the time. She actually worked as a nanny/cleaning lady for a family in Los Angeles for a year so she thinks pretty highly of Americans. This is good. She tells me a lot about the problems in Guatemala, including the dump, and the country's lack of education, saying that without education, you won't learn to have respect for people. Es verdad. She's told me so many interesting and sometimes depressing things, but for sure always informative. I love the variety of women I work with.

Outside of my placement I was able to go on and extra weekend trip to Lake Atitlan (THANKS MOM AND DAD). It was amazing! As per usual. I feel like it was decently relaxing....ok maybe not, but there was only five of us so it was super not stressful. We took off for the lacke on Friday afternoon without a plan for our hostel, but está bien porque there are so many hostels and hotels in the area, so we weren't worried. We had to make a really short stop in Antigua before moving on to Panajachel two and a half hours away. The ride was meh. Nothing special. Thankfully I didn't get carsick though. Success.

Once we got to Panajachel and found a really cute hostel type place to stay. It was kind of a mix between hotel and hostel. Breakfast and dinner were included and we got our own private rooms and bathrooms. SCORE. The next day the five of us woke up early to get our ziplining on. yay so fun. Even though I've zipped across the Berkshires, I wasn't really quite sure what to expect, and was getting decently nervous. I knew once I got past the first zipline, como, está bien, but it didn't take long for me to remember why ziplining is the best.

We had to hike for about for about twenty minutes before the zipline, which included some wooden hangy bridges aka my worst nightmare. Hello adventurous Amanda. God, I'm such a champ now LOL nawwwwt. Also, I'm still mad at Kat for the unnecessary swinging of the bridges -_____-. We ended up having to trek over a bridge right next to a giant waterfall, which I would have appreciated more if I wasn't swinging over a rushing river.  Como, whatever.

And then we got to the zipline. IT WAS THE BEST!! Zipling over Guatemalan forest with a beautiful, gigantic lake view on one side and a waterfall on the other? Yes, please. It may have kicked Mass ziplining in the butt. Just kidding, Massachusetts's zipling is still wicked awesome. I felt pretty safe attached to the wire, but it's definitely less structured than the United States' ziplining. details. I also had to break myself, but está bien, it really wasn't a huge deal, even though that's what scared me. We ended up meeting a couple families from the States on vacation in Guatemala, so I've offish decided our fam needs less princessy vacations and more adventure. Muy bien! I actually just kept thinking that Uncle Scrub, Lucas, and Jessica would be all over this sweet ziplining adventure. Casual trip to Central America, anyone???

After ziplining we found a hippyish kind of restaurant for lunch and shared some delish food and laughs. Definitely a solid group to travel with. We spent the afternoon just kind of shopping and relaxing, so all was good.

Chichicastenango (the biggest market in Central America) was on the agenda for the next day. That was definitely an experience. It was crazy crowded con muchos gringos, but it was still cool, yo. I didn't really buy much since I was kind of overwhelmed and wasn't really sure of what I wanted....so I left the biggest market around with a postcard.

I was just going to end this, but then I remembered that on the way home WE GOT BAGEL BARN AGAIN. obsessed. We semi jokingly asked if the tour company would bring us to Bagel Barn since we are obsessed over it all the way to Antigua. Extra Bage Barn? BEST DAY EVER. Pizza bagels 4 dayzzzz