Guatemala in a Nutshell

Hey everyone!! Alright I caved and started a blog, so now when you are bored surfing the web you can read about my daily adventures while I study abroad :)

First off, before I came to Chile, Erica and I went to Guatemala for four weeks! That was amazing! We stayed in Xela (Shey-la), and we studied Spanish. I had never had a Spanish background before, because I took French in high school. However, with five hours of Spanish a day one on one with my professor, I learned A LOT in that month. I felt a lot more confident about coming to Chile alone after that experience!

While we were in Guatemala we participated in a number of activities with our school, ICA. We went to hot springs which were located up in the mountains. That was incredible, but the spring we picked was super hot! I couldn't stay in there for more that ten minutes at a time. However, after my skin felt AMAZING! We went to a chocolate factory where they showed us how to make legit Guatemalan chocolate. We climbed two volcanoes, Santa Maria and another one...haha sorry I forgot the name. Santa Maria was SUPER hard. I actually didn't make it to the top, because I got sick. Somehow, the first weekend I had food poisoning or something, and then the third weekend I got a throat infection. For the most part, though, the experience was great! We met some incredible people through the school!! We went to the beach, Monterrico, which was gorgeous. It was crazy, because it had black sand, which I had never seen before. Also, we took some chicken buses to Chichicastenago, where every Sunday they have a HUGE outdoor market. Venders fill the streets with all different kinds of goods, purses, hammocks, jewelry, fruit, toys, etc. It is an amazing sight and a perfect place to practice your bargaining skills. I also got inspiration to learn Salsa, because we went to the third annual national salsa competition. Yay for Salsa!!

The school we stayed with has an amazing program! You should all check it out!
http://www.guatemalaspanish.com/

Entonces, Guatemala for a month, home in the states for 10 days, and then I was off to Chile!!