A Lehigh Surprise!

Thanks to the infamous social networking site Facebook, I discovered my friend Kelly from Lehigh was here! I happened to see something come up on the news feed about a trip she took to Lago de Atilan!! It was just chance that I happened to stumble upon it. If I hadn't, I never would have known our trips were overlapping. It was so nice to talk to her before I moved here. She eased all my fears and got me really excited! She had been staying in Antigua for an 8 week research program for medical school. When she told me that I was going to have the best two years of my life, I was sold! I had heard great things before I moved, but when the encouraging words came from the mouth of one of my sorority sisters, I just felt better. We exchanged Guatemalan numbers before the move, and we were in touch the day I landed. We decided to meet up the night after I returned from Antigua. To my surprise, she met a very nice Guatemalan and they picked me up from the hotel. She also brought her friend from med school that she had been traveling with. They brought me to a great little Spanish tapas place. You have to be very careful here and remember that when we say "Spanish" it means from Spain. Back in the states anyone who speaks Spanish, is called Spanish. But that is actually politically incorrect. It's better to say "Central American" or "Latin". Back to the Tapas place....We ordered some very interesting food. For example, Cow's stomach and uncooked Beef. I'm still a practicing vegetarian and stuck to the artichoke dip, calamari and this quiche/pizza dish. All delicious (except for the cow dishes, which I decided to pass on). The sangria was out of this world! We hung here for a while and talked. It was so nice to see Kelly and also nice to learn some ins and outs of the city. The music at this place was hysterical. It must have been a kareeoki mix. We heard Grease songs, 80s songs, the marcarena! The best part was we could see the music videos on a big screen. Very entertaining :)

After we went to a club. I invited the new teachers from the hotel because it was right down the street. Unfortunately I never met up with them because we walked into this place and then walked out. It was so crowded and crazy music. I was happy we were with Guatemalans with a car. They were able to show us around, since I'm not that comfortable with the city yet. One of the guys we were with just finished up vetrinarian school. He is also on the Guatemalan Olympic team for horse riding! Maybe I'll see him on the big screen one day!! Instead we ended up driving over to a bar that was more of a sports lounge. It was better here because you could actually hear the people next to you and talk. It was fun reminicing with Kelly about good ole times at Lehigh. Bars close here at 1AM (which was a huge surprise!) Kelly was leaving on Monday to go back to Denver, so we said our goodbyes. Hopefully I'll see her again soon :)