Antigua Antigua

(click for poorly done translation into English)

Después de una semana, me he aclimato mucho a Antigua. No podía decir que había visto mucho del pueblo, pero este cambió cuando visitaron dos campañeros de clase de SAIS.

El viernes había un temblor! No era muy fuerte, pero no fue pequeño tampoco. Después de mi lección, reuní con unos amigos de SAIS, Lars y Paul. Ellos están aquí para un proyecto sobre la salud y los efectos en el medioambiente de estufas de madera.

El sabado, exploramos unas ruinas de Antigua, incuso una convente anciana y una hermosa ruina grande. Esa noche, invité a ellos para la cena y cenamos con mi familia. Después de la cena, salimos para disfrutar y vimos a una banda. El Domingo miramos el Partido de los Patriots y los Ravens aunque Lars odia mirar los deportes. El bar cuyas televisiones mostraban el partido se llamaba Mono Loco y nos hicimos amigos con uno de los dueños del bar. Èl recentamente había importado una cerveza de los Estados Unidos que se llama Brooklyn Lager.

Cuando terminó el partido, Lars y Paul salieron a la ciudad Guatemala y yo empecé otra semana de estudios intensivos.

Here in Antigua

After my first week in Antigua, I can really feel my Spanish improving. Here's a Spanish-language version of this post for my hispanohablante readers.

I've been living with a really friendly family on the western side of Antigua, only a five-minute's walk from CSA. These people treat the students who stay with them as a part of the family and we share all our meals with them. Their house is really beautiful and the family compound is built around a central courtyard filled with greenery. My room is on the second floor, right next to a really comfortable hammock in a shady spot. You can imagine I spend a lot of time napping there.

The city of Antigua is pretty small, and in a way reminds me of Florence, Italy, because it is chock-full of Americans. I'm not too bothered by the touristy nature of Antigua as I spend 6 hours each day studying Spanish and take my meals in my beautiful temporary home.

My Spanish tutor Edgar and I have gotten to know each other very well and we spend the majority of the time sharing stories with each other or talking about our ideas about culture and history.

On Thursday, two of my classmates from SAIS came to Antigua while on a project and we met up in front of the church in Antigua's main square. We're planning on doing a little exploring today, so stay tuned! A view from my home of one of the three volcanoes surrounding Antigua:

Aquí en Antigua

Después de mi semana primera en Antigua, me parece que esté aumentándose mi español. Se puede leer este blog en inglés también.

Desde llegar, he vivido con una familia amable que viven en el parte oeste de Antigua. Se dicen "poniente" en lugar de oeste aquí por razones históricas (y también me parece turísticas). La familia Guatemalteca me tratan como yo fuera un miembro de la familia y desayunamos, almorzamos, y cenamos juntos. Su casa es muy bella y toda la familia (incluyo 4 generaciones) viven aldrededor de un patio central. Duermo en la planta arriba y a lado de mi puerta hay una hamaca, donde he tomado muchas siestas.

La cidudád de Antigua no es veramente una ciudád sino que un pueblo que me recuerda de Florencia en Italia (porque hay muchos turistas). Hay muchos Estadounidenses aquí, pero no me molesta mucho porque paso la mayoría del cada día en lecciones de español, haciendo tarea o comiendo con la familia.

Mi maestro Edgar y yo nos hemos conocido muy bién y hablamos mucho de las diferencias y las similitudes entre la vida y la culutra en los Estados Unidos y Guatemala. También hemos estado arreglando brechas en mi educcación pasada y gramatica. El jueves, dos campañeros de clase, cuyo proyecto les traía a Antigua, se reunieron conmigo en la iglesia a dentro la plaza central. Hoy tenemos planes para explorar mas la Antigua pues, mantegan preparados!

Una vista de unos de los tres volcanes que envuelvan el pueblo:

Greetings from Guatemala

Hello all,

Checking in from beautiful Antigua, Guatemala, where I've just arrived to take two weeks of intensive Spanish courses before returning to SAIS for my last semester.

On recommendation of my Spanish professor at SAIS professor, I enrolled in a program at CSA, the only institution in Antigua (and maybe all of Guatemala) that is accredited by the Instituto Cervantes. I have a lot of respect for those guys after discovering one of their libraries in Slovakia.

My goal from this trip is to transition from being able to speak Spanish "proficiently" to becoming conversational - fewer pauses in between words, greater fluidity in speaking and more comprehension in listening in conversations. Is this feasible for two weeks? I'll be in class every day for 6 hours and live with a Guatemalan host family, so we'll see.

On my first day of classes, my professor and I (all the sessions are one-on-one) did a in-depth review of "por" vs. "para" before we hopped into other things, and in the afternoon we took a tour of Antigua. More about Antigua later, but the important thing to know is that THERE ARE VOLCANOES HERE. ACTIVE VOLCANOES.

This is a photo of the Vulcan de Agua, behind Ronald McDonald here.

Occupy Snowbird

Upon completion of my final exams, I boarded a plane to Utah to visit some old friends and to do a bit of skiing. A complete coincidence found my best friend Duncan (who usually lives in Casper, Wyoming) on a medical rotation in Salt Lake City. An even more complete coincidence had found him working at the hospital with my buddy from college, Matt, who was originally going to pick me up from the airport. Duncan ended up picking me up from the airport, and we had a great dinner with his wife Amanda, neither of whom I had seen since their wedding.

After dinner, Duncan and Amanda dropped me off at my friends Bryan and Clare's house, where I met up with most of our skiing contingent for the next few days. On Saturday, we got a nice relaxing late start, ate at a brunch place named -- and got in some free skiing at Alta Ski Resort from 3pm to 4:30pm. That night the group picked up Liz and we had a really nice dinner in Salt Lake City.

On Sunday, we began our skiing in earnest, with our friend Meagan joining us for some really enjoyable runs at the Snowbird Resort. Meagan is currently very involved in the Occupy San Francisco movement, which simulated a lot of really fascinating conversation the whole weekend. I don't always recommend talking politics with friends, but this really intelligent and insightful group, it was stimulating. We continued the discussions over dinner at El Chanate, where had a waiter who was almost doing a comic rouine and spent 7 minutes describing the night's special to us.

On Monday and Tuesday, we had the rare opportunity to ride up to the top of the mountain with the ski patrol and ski patrol at 7:30am, watch the sun rise from the top of the tram lift and ski down completely fresh and empty runs. It was wonderful. After almost four days of catching up, debating the politics of equality and progress in America, and carving up the mountain, I hopped on a plane to Denver, Colorado.

In Denver, I met up with my very good friend and old housemate Becca for a day of catching up and friend time. From the airport, we went to a candlelight vigil for the homeless of Denver who had died over the course of 2011. The vigil was held near Denver's Occupy camp, and I had an opportunity to see some protest action up close. When Denver's Mayor came up to speak at the vigil, a small group near the front began to boo. Apparently, Mayor Hancock has reduced funding for services for the homeless of Denver. It got bad enough that the leadership of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless had to come onto the microphone and ask the protesters to respect the families of the deceased. One man in the crowd yelled, "This is a memorial, it's not political!" at the protesters. It is amazing how a minority of people can make a whole crowd seem hostile. After the mayor finished, the rest of the ceremony went uninterrupted, and we all joined in affirming, "We will remember" after each person's name was read. The memorial was a poignant reminder that in a country like ours, there are individuals who society has failed to help enough, and they can die out in the cold, alone.

Becca, who works with an organization that supports the homeless of Denver and the surrounding area had some interesting observations. Apparently the same types of people who usually donate to homeless services in Denver have instead been directing their money to the Occupy movement, and support for her organization has declined while the demand for health and housing services for the homeless in Denver has quadrupled in 2011. The Occupy movement definitely has side effects that might sometimes work at cross purposes from its stated goals.

Becca and I spent the rest of the evening and next day catching up on old times and discussing our futures. On Wednesday, I finished my mid-country detour and completed my journey home to San Diego.

...And We're Back!

Near the end of my summer in Bratislava, things really picked up and I got behind in my blogging. Then I was waiting on people to send me pictures from my last adventures in Europe. Then I was procrastinating on blogging because I had more important schoolwork.

Well, now it's December and my poor blog is suffering from disuse. I'm going to just charge ahead with writing bout new adventures and fill in the old stuff later.

A summary of what's been going on since August...

I finished up at UNDP, with a final trip with my fellow intern Lena to Vienna where we shared a wonderful meal with my colleagues.

Some college friends came to visit me in Bratislava and we traveled together to Prague, where hijinks ensued.

On my way out of Europe, I barely missed a hurricane and made it safely to my friends' Dan and Bitsy's wedding in Minnesota.

I began my third semester at SAIS, moving into my old house and challenging myself with a new set of classes.

I went on a Staff Ride with the Strategic Studies program and traced George Washington's December 1776 campaign.

I had some adventures in Washington DC!

Here's to an updated blog, a great 2012, and to the great people I met in 2011.

Local Adventures

This last weekend, I went with my fellow interns and friends Hyunyoung and Dulce on an exciting tour of Bratislava' outskirts that saw us hiking in green European forests, picnicking at the foot of castle ruins and sharing a relaxing Austrian dinner on the banks of the Danube River.

We started our trip with a tram ride to the suburb of Dúbravka, where we picked up a trail heading over the hills to Devín, a town with an awesome old castle. There weren't many signs, but every once in a while there would be a tree marked with a red line that would tell us we were headed in the right direction. Even with these markers, we only narrowly managed to avoid missing the trail back down the hill, thanks to our great guide, Dulce.

We arrived in Devín around 2:00 or 3:00pm and staked out riverside spot under the shadow of the town's castle, which used to control a strategic bend of the Danube and was destroyed by Napoleon's troops in 1809. After our nice strenuous hike and our lunch, we decided that the best next course of action was napping in our peaceful riverside spot.

Post nap, Dulce, Hyunyoung and I wandered around the grounds at the base of the castle where Dulce (who is fluent in Slovak) met and befriended an old man who is the owner of a winery in Devín that makes a delicious young wine.

From Devín, we took a 30 minute ferry ride up the Danube to Hainburg an der Donau, which is a cool old Austrian town with a lot of history. Much of its medieval city walls are still intact. We explored Hainburg on foot and I was able to nerd-out pretty hard at the town's history museum.

As the sun set over the windmill-lined Austrian horizon, we shared an Austrian dinner at a riverside restaurant. The amazing part of this trip was how far we felt we had gone, but how close we actually were to Bratislava. Our bus ride back to the city was probably only 20 minutes.