Ahhh where do I start. Today has been another long day of traveling but we made it to Xela! We woke up pretty early to start our trip over to Xela from Guatemala City but I spent most of it snoozing on the bus. We made a small stop in a strip mall to grab lunch and John and I got some chicken that was pretty delicious. I'm also very astonished at how cheap everything is here compared to the US. My lunch was a two-piece chicken meal with a side and a drink and it cost 18 quetzales if I remember correctly, which is about $2.50 USD. That is INSANE. I can already tell that I'm going to be constantly eating here haha.
Anyways, after the small stop for lunch we kept driving along and made another stop to refuel our bus at a gas station. It started raining during the trip over and the high elevation made for some really cool shots of clouds sitting along the tress of the country side. After the second stop, we drove straight to Xela and of course I knocked out again along the way and I only woke up until we finally arrived right in front of Sol Latino, the Spanish school we will be studying at for the next 4 weeks. There, Mitchka, Katie, and I got introduced to Nidia, our host mom in Xela. We then made the walk from the Spanish school to our house so we could figure out how to get back to the school the following morning. At our house, we got showed our rooms and we unpacked everything and got ready for dinner. We got introduced to most of the family that lives there and we also met some of the other students from Guatemala that are living in the house as well. There's Melanie and Estefany (the two daughters), Diego, Estuardo, and Wilson (three other Guatemalan students), Peluche and Nena (the two dogs), and Nidia and Mario (the grandparents in the house). Michelle is the daughter of Nidia and the mother of Melanie and Estefany but she couldn't be there to welcome us because she was working. We helped make dinner, I showed everyone my photography, DJing, and magic tricks (which they loved) and danced a little bit before heading off to a bar called El Portal by Al Parque Central to have some drinks before we wrapped up our first night. I absolutely LOVE our host family and I can tell that I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the next four weeks here :) But again, I'm going to get some sleep since we have our Spanish placement exam tomorrow morning. Hoping for the best! -Scott
Update June 11: Just uploaded the vlog from today's events on YouTube! Check it out below!