Our first try at leaving for Guatemala didn´t work. As we were checking our bags, the friendly Continental staff was inspecting my passport and said it wouldn´t do at all. I put it through the laundry a while ago (it doesn´t say anywhere not to...) and so the backing is coming off a bit, and all the stamps have reproduced themselves on the facing page, kinda like when you would get your 21 yr. old buddy to lick his hand stamp and press it onto the back of your hand so that you would have a little (inverted) smudge that would allow you to drink at the bar. Don´t pretend you didn´t ever do this.
Actually, one attendant told me to just get some glue from the Hudson News stand and glue it back together- it´s not like Immigration is that particular, right? But meanwhile her evil supervisor had gotten wind of the situation and sent us away, off to the Tip O´Neill building to try to get it replaced. In one day. Yeah, right, you say. How are you going to get the world´s biggest bureaucracy to replace a wicked official document that normally takes months in the legalest of circumstances to move that quickly? I don´t know, but they did. By the end of the day, I had a new passport and we were back on track for the next day. When we showed up at the airport, the glue-suggester gave us both big hugs. Gotta love Continental, my new favorite airline. The bar had been set pretty fricking low by Delta, but still.
Now we´re here. People are as friendly as they say. I think. Actually, I have no idea, because only Mariam speaks Spanish, and so all I know is that they smile a lot. Hopefully this will all change when Spanish school starts on Monday, but until then, I am completely dependent on my beautiful bride for all my basic needs. And my complicated ones. Did I mention how beautiful she is?
Everything is colorful here. Houses and buildings are painted every bright, pastel shade you can imagine. It´s a bit dusty, and there´s plenty of rubbish and skinny dogs around. Much more crowded and bustling than I had imagined, especially Xela. I was thinking it would be kind of a rural community in the mountains, but instead it´s the second largest city. We´re still exploring, wide-eyed, and still a bit guarded, so we´re both looking forward to settling in and relaxing. We´ll let you know how that goes.
1 comment:
We've polished off the leftovers from your going-away dinner, so it really feels like you're gone. When I got home midday on Friday to avoid the traffic hassles of winter's final punch (I'm hoping), Brielle was already here, also "working from home." In her case, she was willing to brave the slippery roads (although had tucked her car into Dad's spot in the garage to avoid the windshield scraping), but wanted to catch some March Madness basketball while she crunched numbers or debugged databases or whatever she was working on. She's fitting herself right into the vacuum you guys left, appropriating your laptop and staking out your bedroom for future overnights (and naps). She's finally decided laptops aren't so bad after all - I think working from the couch while keeping tabs on the basketball pool standings finally won her over.
Anyway, we're glad you made it and hope you have fun en clase espanola manana! Escriba pronto, Ma
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