Drinks on the plane

Last night, after seeing off all of our wonderful friends and packing frenetically until 2AM, Cat and I got to sleep for two hours, dozing off until the alarms rang at 4:30 and we called a car service to take us to JFK... Oops, La Guardia; same thing. Waiting in line for security we met our first travel companion, Amy, a social worker who is going to be working at a shelter for women and children in Xela (Quetzaltenango) and who made me feel downright embarrassed about having gotten all bent out of shape over the lack of a computer. She doesn't have cellphone or anything, and is going without any knowledge of Spanish, a deficit that she was nonplussed by.
Our first flight out we zonked out right away and stayed asleep until the plane came into Fort Lauderdale. Waiting at the crowded gate we ran into Amy again, who borrowed Cat's phone to call her girlfriend, and then sat awhile and talked with us as we learned that our plane had been delayed, first for an hour, then a little more.

On the plane, first sat next to a hawaiian shirt-clad missionary who seemed nondescript, then he moved and we were sitting next to, or rather, Cat was sitting in the shadow of, an enormous man in safari clothes, cowboy hat and glasses, who did nothing for some time.

We both went to sleep, and when I woke, the man had struck up a conversation of sorts with Cat, where he was trying to get her to pay for sodas with her credit card because he only had cash. This led to him offering us - peer pressure peer pressure peer pressure! - copious amounts of vodka from his duty free bag (I didn't know you were supposed to open it in-flight) and as he got drunker and drunker, the stories began to blend, from biting criticisms of the bombastic Americans traveling abroad, to bemoaning the state of public education, to the logical conclusion, flashbacks to Vietnam, which he illustrated shockingly by thwapping Cat in the forehead with his finger, saying, "You feel things brushing by your head, and you realize they're bullets, and a fraction of an inch either way and it would have been you dead..."

And so we stumbled off the plane into Guatemala, which our collective parents must LOVE to hear about, but we were okay, and walked safely and with a stunning display of linearity towards the ATM. All of our bags made it intact, we met up again with Amy, and a fellow traveler Jessie (-ca?) and shared a cab to Antigua, where I was able to recall the location (Okay, the Lonely Planet guidebook recalled it) to Casa don Ismail, where Cat and I have a quiet, private room overlooking the volcano, requisite ruins and a courtyard filled with Orchids. . .

We ate dinner at a French restaurant that was built parallel to the ruins of the Iglesia Catolica of the Parque Central, watching the sun go down in clouds, and the sharp teeth of a volcanic skyline swell into a vague immensity in the gathering dark, and now we are typing to you wonderful people, enjoying our first evening in Guatemala, and getting ready to go back to the hostel to sleep.

A rough itinerary: Tomorrow travel to San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlan, spend the night and find Jessie, Ariel and Amanda (Yoga). Friday, head back across the lake to San Jorge La Laguna and stay the evening with Carmencita, Juan Carlos, Pedrito and Daniel. Saturday, take the bus to Xela (Quetzaltenango) and stay somewhere! Sunday, travel to Colomba and get close to the Language School, Projecto Linguistico Quetzaltenango (En los Cuchumatanes).

We spend two weeks at the language school, living it up in thatch-roofed style.

Take care friends!
Love,
Brian and Catherine