So Far, So Good ...

So I have 43 days until I board my flight to Auckland, New Zealand (and 45 days until I arrive - silly international date line!), and so far, everything seems to be moving smoothly and in the correct direction. I've got my school, my housing and my funding all lined up, my visa in my passport (and my passport carefully stowed away so I don't lose it), and my plane ticket booked. I got some fabulous New Zealand essentials from my parents for Christmas, and I've already had a few friends promise to come visit me.

As a quick recap: I'm headed to New Zealand February 10th, for one year of study at the University of Auckland. If all goes well, I'll complete my LL.M. (Master of Laws) and return to the U.S. with another degree on my resume at the end of 2009! I've applied to complete my degree by thesis, which means most of my credits will come not from coursework, but rather from research and writing. I think I've spent enough time in lectures! (Although now that I think about it, a 30,000 word thesis can't possibly be much more relaxing ....)

My studies will be funded by an Ambassadorial Scholarship awarded to me by the Rotary Foundation, District 5400. The grant should cover all of my essentials, including housing and travel, for the year, and comes with some very good fringe benefits. In an effort to ensure that I get the most good out of my experience, I've already been put in touch with a Rotarian in Auckland, my "host counselor," who's responsible for helping me settle in and navigate. John and I have been exchanging emails, and he's already sent pictures of his beautiful family and made arrangements to meet me at the airport upon my arrival. I've also corresponded with his wife, who has offered to loan me some necessaries until I get a chance to make it to the store. They've offered to introduce me to some of the wines for which NZ is quickly becoming famous, and I'm even invited to tag along with their tramping (hiking) group, if I'm willing to spend time with some "oldies." I get the impression that I'll be well taken care of by these two!

Meanwhile, my sponsor counselor here in Idaho, Ken, has certainly been fulfilling his responsibilities as well. When I was first applying for the Scholarship, Ken was the District Governor (I think - still a bit shaky on the Rotary hierarchy), and we had a pretty difficult time getting in touch. I was living in Boston for school, so we played phone tag for weeks - in fact, I remember first talking to Ken super long distance from India! Now that I'm back in Idaho for a while, we finally managed to meet for dinner with his lovely wife Nancy.

Since then, I've been taken around to most of the Boise Rotary meetings and introduced to countless Rotarians as their scholar. The District Scholarship was recently under review, and Ken felt that it was important that members knew where their money was going. Fortunately, us scholars were deemed a good investment, and it looks like the Scholarship will continue for the foreseeable future. Ken and I plan on continuing our visits in the new year - I hope to make it to most, if not all, of the Treasure Valley clubs before leaving - and I'm forever grateful for his help and his kindness.

Since returning from Guatemala in October, I've scrabbled to get New Zealand all squared away. The visa was a trial - although I'd be able to apply for a student visa once in the country, Rotary requires that scholars get their visas prior to travel. Unfortunately, my past travel history was extensive and varied enough that the New Zealand government required a certification from a radiologist that a chest x-ray was performed and no signs of current or past tuberculosis were found. While I'm glad to announce that I am officially TB-free, getting the required documentation required some frustrating, if not surprising, contortions. Fortunately, my passport went and was returned with a minimum of stress - I know of another Rotary Scholar, also travelling to New Zealand in February, who was forced to apply for a new passport and visa when UPS got her visa'd passport stuck in a sorting machine!

Housing was a bit stressful as well. I had no desire to travel to Auckland without a place to stay lined up, but I have arranged housing from the U.S. only to have plans crumble upon arrival. After living two weeks in a bedbug-ridden hostel in Cairo following just such a situation, I'm not really willing to rent an apartment sight-unseen. I finally settled on graduate student housing through the school. About a ten minute walk from campus, the Park Road Student Flats are private rooms with en suite bathrooms, with a shared kitchen and common area. I've never lived in a dorm-like setting, and I'm not sure about the shared kitchen thing, but at least I don't have to carry my shampoo to a communal bathroom every morning! Plus, for convenience and location, these were definitely a great option for me - and probably a better fit than the undergraduate student dorms!

Now that I've gotten all of my paperwork submitted and travel arranged, I've dedicated my time to more intangible preparations. For example, I've watched Season 1 of The Flight of the Conchords (an HBO series about a two-man folk band from New Zealand trying to make it big in New York) quite a few times, and I have extensively perused the All Blacks website (New Zealand's national rugby team) in a futile attempt to figure out what exactly rugby is. I've searched for "Kiwi accent" videos on YouTube more times than I can (or should) count, and watched a lovely show on nature photography in New Zealand. I've also started looking up live music venues in Auckland, and have a small stack of travel guides and maps that I've been flipping through.

Overall, I feel more or less prepared for this adventure. I've definitely travelled to "scarier" (e.g. more culturally different from the U.S.) places with less support, so I'm hoping that I can deal with any minor bumps without too much hassle. Now if I could just understand rugby, I'd be set!

San Juan de Obispo

Yesterday, in lieu of traditional classes, my teacher took me out to her town, San Juan de Obispo, a 20 minute bus ride from the city. This was in part because we both needed a break, but more importantly, because the best chocolate in Guatemala is made there, and it's much cheaper to buy it directly from the source. (Guatemala is known for its drinking chocolate, which is sold in round tablets scored into four pieces.) I now have five pounds of chocolate in my suitcase. Yes, five. And even cooler - it cost me less than $10!

Aside from the chocolate shopping, I was able to wander around the town and tour the church/convent/museum at the center. San Juan is definitely a traditional Guatemalan town, in great contrast to Antigua ... our school has another post there, and many students prefer San Juan as a quieter, more authentic study experience. For me, it's a bit too quiet ... there's a church, a surprising number of butterflies ... and not much else. But I got a chance to see my teacher's house, meet her family (and her puppy), and go a whole day without learning new grammar rules - so all in all, a successful trip!

(In the bottom picture, the city in the distance is Antigua ... and the large yellow church is La Merced, very very close to my house.)

Monterrico

After our time in Tikal, I decided that I had to revise my travel plans a bit. Initially, I wanted to travel to Rio Dulce, and visit Livingston, a little town on the Caribbean. However, I was warned that the humidity was just as bad there as in Tikal, so instead I decided to hit Monterrico, a beautiful black sand beach a mere two hours away.

Which, it turns out, is just as humid. And midday, the sand is so hot that I literally burned my feet. Okay, so it wasn't the best thought-out plan ... but it was a good weekend all the same. We booked a shuttle for early Saturday morning, and it turns out the four of us were the only people in the van, which made for a relaxing trip. When we got to the end of the road, we were still a good twenty minutes away from Monterrico - by boat. A lovely river ride later, we arrived in the town and trekked the kilometer to the hotel. Because I had arranged EVERYTHING for Tikal, Jane and Leonor had taken on the responsibility for this trip. A great gesture, but apparently one that involved booking a painfully cheap, and disgustingly dirty, hotel. Which is bad in the best of times, but clean sheets are especially important when you're covered in sweat! Karina and I, the resident old folks, decided to find ourselves a slightly cleaner, and more expensive, option, and wound up choosing a hotel on the beach with A/C and a nice restaurant where we ate all of our meals.

The weekend was basically dedicated to lounging on the beach and napping in the shade (more of the latter for me, but the Norweigen ladies want to return home as dark as guatemaltecas, so ...). Saturday night, we paid a guide to walk down the beach for us looking for sea turtles, as it is currently prime egg-laying season. We trekked for a total of three hours, and in fact didn't find the turtle until we had almost returned to the hotel, and then it was raining ... but it was still a magnificent sight! I felt a bit bad for the turtle, surrounded by people with cameras and flashlights, but she made it back to the ocean just fine (the guide made sure she'd layed and covered her eggs before he let us approach). Also cool - the sand was alight with some weird phosphoresance that sparkled wherever we walked, which was almost enough to entertain me during our THREE HOURS of walking. (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about that - three hours is a long time generally, but in SAND?!?)

Other than the turtle, nothing much happened - unless you count the drunk guy in the tienda (store) who tried to grab my arm. (I do know how to say "If you touch me, I'll break your arm" in Spanish, but I wasn't able to say it on the spot - guess that means I need more practice!) But it was a nice, relaxing (albeit humid) weekend out of the city, which is just what I needed after my first week with 30 hours of lessons!

Dia de la Independencia!

On September 15, 1821, Guatemala first celebrated its independence from Spain. (Or, according to some grumpy old men, it's "independence.") Now, this independence is celebrated with high school parades and festivals in the parks. I got up (much too early) to watch some of the parade - but you can only watch five or six high school bands before it gets really boring, even in Guatemala. In the afternoon, I wandered around Parque Central - there were THOUSANDS of people listening to speeches, watching the bands, eating street food (I was jealous, but I only had an hour before dinner), and enjoying their day off from work. All in all, an independence day not that different from our own ... although the fireworks were substantially less impressive.

Guicoyitos Rellenos

As promised, one of the recipes from my cooking class. Mom, I expect you to have this mastered by the time I get home! :)

8 Guicoyitos, with stems*

1 C Green Beans, Parboiled, then thinly sliced crosswise

½ C tomatoes, diced

¼ C onion, diced

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 ½ Tbsp vegetable oil

1 ½ tsp salt

Pepper to taste

Thin slice of Queso de Capas (or mozzarella)

1 Tbsp. parmesan cheese

* If these round zucchinis cannot be found, use long ones.

Preparing Guicoyitos

Place guicoyitos in a medium saucepan with water to cover, and add 1 tsp salt. Cook for 25 minutes. Let cool. Cut tops off, leaving stems intact, and save. Remove centers with a spoon.

If using long zucchini, boil for 3 minutes. Let cool. Cut in half lengthwise, and remove centers with a spoon.

Preparing the Filling

In medium frying pan, heat vegetable oil and sauté onions and garlic until translucent, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes and sauté for another minute. Add green beans and sauté 2 more minutes, seasoning with remaining salt and pepper. Let cool.

Fill guicoyitos with the green bean mixture. Add the cheese on top of each guicoyito, and cover with the reserved tops. If using long zucchini, fill each side separately and top with cheese. (These zucchini will be baked without ‘tops’.)

Place the guicoyitos in a baking dish and bake for 25 minutes in a 325 degree F oven.

Sauce (can be made in advance, the day before)

4 medium tomatoes, roma or other, halved

½ small white onion

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp sugar

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Place tomatoes and onion on a preheated griddle and roast, turning once, until tender, about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from heat; let cool and puree in blender or food processor.

Heat oil in a small saucepan and add tomato and onion puree, salt and sugar. Simmer on low heat, stirring, for 5 minutes. Set aside and keep warm.

To serve

Spoon a small amount of sauce on each plate, and place the guicoyito on top. Remove the top of each guicoyito and stand leaning on the side. If using long zucchini, serve each half separately. Spoon more sauce on top and sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of parmesan cheese.

Peten

So there's a bit more going on in the region of Peten than just Tikal ... but not much. The next morning, a couple people wanted to go to the "beach" (we were on a lake, so technically yes, but the horses and pigs were quite a deterrent for me ...), and the rest of us headed out to a nature reserve. It was a 30 minute walk in the humidity each way, then a few hours wandering around the reserve. Mainly, it was a combination of a really hard workout and a waste of time -- I tried to explain to my friends that it's quite difficult to see wild animals in reserves, especially for groups of six people loudly talking and crashing through the bushes, but they were sure that, since the brochure showed pictures of cute fuzzy creatures, we would be able to take pictures of cute fuzzy creatures.

They were wrong. The closest we got was cute trees, and they weren't even fuzzy ... there were a TON of butterflies, giant and beautiful, but they rarely stayed still long enough for us to take our pictures ... especially when people didn't have the foresight to turn off the artificial shutter noise on their cameras!!

After our grueling death march, we returned to the hotel for yet another round of showers and some refreshing coffee licuados. (My FAVORITE thing about Guatemala is that every restaurant and cafe offers licuados, which is a blend of fruit with water, milk or yogurt ... and some places offer interesting derivations as well.) At two on the dot, we clambered into our "private" shuttle and headed back to Antigua. It wasn't as private as we'd hoped - we thought we'd have space to spread out more, but the driver had brought along a back-up driver. Which makes sense, because it's 10 hours or so in each direction. But he had also brought along his daughter, and his daughter's 3-4 month old baby. The baby sat in her mother's lap in the front seat for the whole drive, which was a bit worrying (I guess they don't have car seats here), and a bit reassuring (I'm sure grandpa drove VERY CAREFULLY), but was admirably quiet and well behaved. And not smelly.

The trip took longer than expected - it was the night before Independence Day, and there's a cool tradition here where people run down the roads with torches, followed by packs of supporters in slow-moving vehicles. Very beautiful, unless you're in the midst of an already-too-long drive. We passed about 50 of them! :) And then, about 50 km from home, the highway was closed for construction. Not narrowed to one lane, just closed. And we weren't given the opportunity to detour, we just parked on the highway for 45 minutes.

I obviously got home eventually, of course. And we even eventually got some of our money back from the travel agency for the bus snafu, although that took some smooth (albeit grammatically incorrect) talking on my part. So all in all, a successful trip. Although I don't think I ever want to be a tour guide.

More Tikal Pictures - because why not?!

Tikal!!!!

Last weekend, a group of friends and I headed north to Tikal, the most famous, most photographed, and as it turns out, most HUMID of all the destinations in Guatemala. It's a bunch of old Mayan ruins set in the jungle - a great way to spend an afternoon, and definitely worth the effort.

Of course, getting there wasn't pan comido (a Guatemalan expression that, loosely translated, is equal to 'cake walk'). I had been planning on traveling alone, or MAYBE with one or two friends, but this somehow exploded into a ten-person trip with me at the helm. The organization alone was exhausting, but finally everyone had bus tickets on the nice, first class tourist bus to Tikal (because it's 10 hours away, the best way to get there (other than flying) is via overnight tourist bus). We got picked up by a shuttle Friday night (the bus leaves from Guatemala City), but when we got dropped off at the bus terminal, the tourist bus wasn't there .... and we learned that our tickets were in fact for the (much cheaper) public bus. Luckily, we had seats, although not all together - there were five or six guys with tickets without seats, and they had to ride 10 hours sitting on overturned buckets in the middle of the aisle! My friend Jane took pictures (for when we returned to the travel agency to complain), so I'll try to get those posted eventually ... for now, it's sufficient to say that it was NOT the first class tourist bus we'd expected. It was good enough, and certainly safe, but it would have been nice if there weren't half a dozen Guatemaltecos sleeping in front of the bathroom ...

But we arrived in once piece, made it to the hotel, and were luckily allowed to check in REALLY early (at like 7:00 in the morning). Some people slept, but I went to eat a very slow, and very delicious, breakfast at one of the few restaurants in town. We were staying in a sleepy place called El Remate, the closest town to Tikal (still a 45 minute drive), and service for six of us (all eating scrambled eggs) took over an hour, but that's the beauty of Guatemala time ... I'm slowly becoming accustomed.

Afterwards, we had to decide how we were traveling back to Antigua the next day - bus tickets have to be purchased 24 hours in advance, and in a town 45 minutes away. There was another drawn out, dramatic conversation wherein people refused to do things because they were too expensive, without there being ANY OTHER OPTION (e.g., "No, I don't want to take a private shuttle, because it costs too much! But no, I don't want to go into town for a bus ticket, because it costs too much!"), but eventually we booked a private door-to-door shuttle, owned by the guy who runs the hotel, as a faster, safer and more comfortable alternative to whichever bus we would have otherwise wound up on.

And FINALLY, after all this drama, it was time to head for Tikal! The best time, we'd heard, was sunrise, but as that didn't really fit into our schedule, we decided to head in around lunchtime and stay for the sunset. Of course, we didn't account for the overwhelming humidity, or our inability to walk around the park for six hours straight ... We saw a LOT of great monuments, even more trees, some monkeys and lizards and disgusting spiders, and then it was 3:30 and we were all ready to head home. It was okay, we told ourselves, because the monuments face the wrong way for the sunset anyway!

We headed back to the hotel, took (totally pointless) showers, and then headed out for dinner. There was a great, tiny restaurant across the street, run by an old guy with one arm, where all the food was homemade, delicious, and really cheap! Some people complained, of course, because there wasn't a menu to choose from (two main courses only), and then because the service was slow (the guy only had one arm!!!), but I thought the food was great, and since we had cards to keep us busy until the food came, it was no problem for me! :) Afterwards, we were planning on heading out for a drink or two, but all of El Remate closes down at 9:00, so instead we all just headed back to the hotel and crashed early.

Random

Just a few quick pictures of the school and the town, to give you an idea of how I while away the hours ... :) And yes, I do sometimes play Scrabble at school - but it's Spanish scrabble!

La escuela de la cocina

So it's been another quiet week in Antigua, but I did have one day of excitement - Tuesday, a few of my friends and I took a cooking class! It was private - the five of us alone - and the teacher was great. We learned how to make tamales (negro y colorado), frijoles (black beans - three different preparations), tortillas, guacamol (in Mexico: guacamole), stuffed squashes, fried plantains and arroz con leche (rice pudding). The food was delicious, and we each made our own tamales and squash, so we all got some experience. Mom had better be looking for some banana leaves!

I was going to post a recipe, but I forgot to bring them over to the internet cafe, so I'll save that for another day. But here are a few pictures to make you jealous!