more details

ok so now that i've had my coffee, heres more details on yesterday! so on getting to our house we met Enrique (guard) and Virginia (director) and they are awesome. Enrique is going to help me with my spanish, and since i keep constantly asking him things i think he may be getting annoyed. after we got in Vince (another CCS volunteer who has been here like 6 times) took us on a walk around a bit of the town and showed us some of the basic places to go, thank goodness we had someone like him here or we'd be lost. in the evening we heard a "band practice" in the street, apparently there is a huge parade every year and bands have to try out to be in it and so they practice constantly in the streets, so thats pretty cool cuz it sounds like there is a parade all the time! then after dinner we all decided not to waste a perfectly good saturday night and walked to a couple restaurants in town where i learned a few things:

• even if you just order a drink, you will get food. dont try to refuse. 
• seeing a guard standing in the shadows with an assault rifle is not a big deal...it happens.
• Cerveza mixta- is a mix of light and dark beer, and pretty much just tastes like Shiner
• WATCH OUT because apparently they serve beer con tomate o sal...with tomatos or salt mixed, i have no idea why. but just check
• there is no "short walk" to the laundromat... its like 17 blocks
• guatemalan music videos are very similar to the backstreet boys form the 90's
• this town shuts down around midnight or earlier
• there are so many parks! there's one like every 3 blocks

and thats about it for now. this morning i finally got out of bed around 7:30 even though i'd been up for what felt like hours, our house is on the main street and its so loud outside, we're really close to the airport, on the bus route and right across the street from a huge church (really pretty) so needless to say i didnt sleep well. after i got up i got to meet the cook/housekeeper Julieta who also only speaks Spanish so thats another person to practice with! yay! then me and abbey tried to do a puzzle in our courtyard only to realize halfway through that it was actually two different puzzles in the same box but neither of them had all the pieces. today we have orientation so i'm pretty excited about that! we also found a calendar with our "cultural activities" for each day listed and it looks like we'll be doing a city tour after work tomorrow and going to a winery on Wednesday! well ill update again later, im going to go get some pictures of the house!


*****UPDATE*****

we went wandering around town this afternoon before lunch and its pretty awesome. they close off part of their 6th street and its just basically a park on sundays where people sell food and walk their dogs and ride bikes, pretty cool. also there are stray dogs everywhere, its really sad. but we walked down the street cuz we heard there was a park at the very end, and oh man we were not prepared for what we saw. at the end of the street was a carnival!!!! with BUMPER CARS! so we  obviously had to ride them. well apparently their version of "los carros locos" is a little different in Guatemala, and by different i mean far less safe and far more awesome. the cars were sparking all over the place, you could smell the burning from the cars and when we slammed into each other it was literally like getting in a car accident. pretty sure we all have whiplash, but it was sooooo worth it. then we went back home and got to eat some awesome soup. great day so far and its almost time for orientation!