Our First Day - Monday, February 1

After we had moved into our apartment, we made our first mistake. Our landlord generously offered to take us into La Antigua so that we could do some grocery shopping. As tired as we were, we should have declined and taken the nap we had planned. Instead we went into La Antigua, but forgot to take our dictionary, shopping sacks or a grocery list. We did get a sim chips for our cell phones, but couldn't get them to work (solved that night). To top it off, Monday was a restocking day at the bodega (combination grocery and department store) we were advised to use and the aisles were congested. We picked up a few items and decided to return to our apartment. This is where it gets good. I saw what it thought was the bus we needed (it wasn't) and ran to catch it. The curb at this location was at least two to two and a half feet high, so I jumped and somehow missed it. Instead, my leg crashed into the curb. On the way down, I also hit my right arm just below the shoulder. Talk about hurt! I was afraid at first that I had broken my leg, but fortunately, although it hurt like the dickens, it was only bruised. Several people asked if I needed to see a doctor, but I declined, once I knew I could stand on it. I was carrying some groceries with me when I fell, including a a cardboard tray with 15 eggs that was shrink-wrapped. We later discovered that only two had broken. Once I could move again, we started looking for the correct bus back to our apartment. We finally found one whose driver confirmed that he was going our direction, but we discovered that he had lied when he dropped all the passengers off in Ciudad Vieja. Since we knew where we were and where we were going, we decided to walk. It was only about a mile, although Linda argues that it was closer to two miles. Either way, it was a lovely day for a stroll.

Back at the apartment, we decided to take that nap we had denied ourselves. Afterwards, we felt much better. After cleaning up and changing for dinner, we walked down to the road and waited for another chicken bus into La Antigua for our dinner with Kristen, the program coordinator with Child Aid with whom we have been corresponding. Since we were early, we decided to stroll around town, stop by an ATM, check out some bookstores and sit in Central Park near the famous Mermaids Fountain (http://antiguadailyphoto.com/2008/09/09/mermaids-fountain-at-central-park/ - click on the photo for a closer look). The mermaids are active participants in the fountain. Unfortunately, Central Park is infested with vendors, so we soon moved on to the restaurant we had chosen for dinner. We thought we would get a table and be there when Kristen arrived. To our surprise, La Fuente, the restaurant, is no longer in business. There are other businesses there (an Internet cafe and a variety of stores), but the restaurant is gone and the central courtyard around the fountain, that had been so lovely in 2007, was in a sad state of disarray.

When Kristen arrived, she told us that she also had discovered that La Fuente had closed, but had several alternative suggestions. We decided to eat at Da Gusto, an excellent restaurant not far from Central Park. It wasn't cheap (about $45 for the three of us), but the food and the atmosphere was wonderful. We had Chicken Pepian (a Mayan chicken fricassee). During dinner, Kristen told us that she had decided to take us to Chimaltenango on Wednesday, so that we could get started on our computer project. She had told the teachers and students that we were coming and they were very excited. After dinner, Kristen went with us to get some minutes for our cell phone (the sim card came with bonus minutes, but they don't work until you buy additional minutes). That done, we got a taxi and returned to our apartment for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow we would do some shopping and continue to recover from our exhaustion.