Winter Holidays

Geoff and I had an amazing trip back to the States for the holidays! Not only did we get to see a lot of friends and family, but we also got to spend some time in the city, revisiting our favorite restaurants and checking out the current Broadway shows -- and we even managed to swing-dance for a hot second! It made us miss being back in the States, for sure, but also helped us appreciate things back in San Salvador (ie. the ridiculously warm weather and things being reasonably priced). In any case, it will likely be a good while before we get to take another vacation to the New York area, so we cherished this opportunity to catch up with everyone.

Since it is costly to fly directly from San Salvador to the States, Geoff and I had decided a few months back to try instead to fly through Guatemala. On paper, that saves us about $200 per person round-trip, which is a kickass deal. But, in reality, the bus + extra nights in a hotel + extra food expenses just about balance out the savings we would have had. And actually, the hassle of traveling by bus through Guatemala isn't worth the savings, regardless of how comfortable and luxurious those busses may be.

Still, Geoff and I thought this particular trip through Guatemala was well worth it, because we got a chance to check out Volcano Pacaya, which had been our only regret from our previous visit to Guatemala. There is a reputable tour group that takes people up the volcano at night, camps overnight, and then hikes up to the flowing lava just before sunrise. But unfortunately, 1. they're not too flexible with their dates, since they need to rally 4 people in order to make it worth their effort to lead such a trip, 2. the boss is kind of an asshole to his employees. In the end, we booked another day trip instead. The day trip only costs $10 per person, plus about $5 for entrance fee to the park and tips for the guides. The afternoon hike, which Geoff and I had gone on, left at 2pm and was supposed to catch the sunset as we were descending the volcano. But, since our group had a few old ladies and children, the group hiked extraordinarily slowly, and it actually worked out to be to our benefit. We didn't get to the flowing lava until sunset, so we saw an amazing sunset right over the lava stream, and we got to enjoy the lava in the dark before descending the hill! (Most other day-hike groups only see the lava in daylight, which just isn't the same.)

The experience was truly phenomenal, and I would highly recommend it. Although, you definitely feel when you are up there, that you are tempting fate. Even as we were climbing the volcano, the local guide pointed out chunks of rocks where lava had flown only months -- or weeks! -- ago. He said that the lava flow changes its direction or location sometimes within a day. Then, when we got to the mini-crater about 200m from the main (top) crater, the hot river of lava was breath-taking. At one point, the rocks near where Geoff had been standing collapsed, and everyone was pretty freaked out from the keen awareness that we were standing on only a thin shell of rocks above a huge reservoir of hot lava. Later, as we got further away from the lava, and we looked back, we could see two different places where the volcano was erupting, and see heavy smoke coming from the top crater. One of the guides told us "no es normal", which only hastened our steps down the mountain.

Geoff and I spent the next couple of days just relaxing in Guatemala, getting over our sickness (which we had acquired in the below-freezing weather of New York) and easing our way back home to the tropics. I posted the complete set of vacation pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/averyseriousmimi/sets/72157623154596774/show/ , which you can watch as a slideshow.

Take care! Hope you (whoever and whereever you are) had a lovely holiday season. :)

Movies and Down Time

Geoff and I have been watching a lot of movies, because he has recently cut back (ie. temporarily stopped) drinking, in hopes of getting back on track with a healthier lifestyle before Christmas. As a result, neither of us has been too excited about hanging out at bars the last couple of weeks. Instead, over the weekend, we went to the movie theatre twice and watched Julie and Julia and Unglorious Bastards.

Unglorious Bastards was an excellent film about the Nazi occupation of France (set during WWII, but it's actually historically inaccurate, so it doesn't matter). The entire film kept us on the edge of our seats, and the plot twists were clever and intricate. To add to the experience, much of the movie was spoken in either German or French, and Geoff and I had to rely on our ability to read the Spanish subtitles to follow the plot. Fortunately, reading is always easier than listening, and we were actually fairly surprised by our ability to follow most of the film! (Our Spanish is getting better, for sure, but when native speakers begin to speak fast, we still have trouble understanding sometimes. Thus, watching dubbed movies is still very challenging.)

Julie and Julia is a much slower film. It got me thinking, however, about the blogosphere. I used to read various blogs written by friends. Over the years, as everyone got busier, the frequency of both their writing and my reading of their blogs had waned. Once in a while, I still go through short phases where I would follow blogs of some random teachers or swing dancers, to keep me in the loop of what others with similar interests are finding and exploring. But, there is nothing out there that really keeps my interest consistently as a reader. I would, however, be interested in reading in real time about someone else's ambitious undertaking of a task, similar to what Julie had set out to do in the movie. Are you familiar with some such blog? (Google seemed to fail me in finding anything of interest. But then again, I couldn't think of good keywords to use to help filter out the bloggers who blog mostly about their careers.)

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Anyway, as for my own life, things are going slowly. School has almost slowed to a halt, with kids taking midterms and teachers grading only idly before the holidays. I'm looking forward to having a few days off between school and going back to the States to unwind, read some books, watch some Law and Order, and maybe even get a haircut. :)

Nicaragua!

Geoff and I had a fabulous time in Nicaragua! It is a breath-taking country, with friendly people and very affordable tourism options.

Since Geoff's visa was approved recently, we booked last-minute tickets for Thanksgiving to go to Nicaragua. We caught a good deal, and paid only $167/person for our round-trip flights on Copa Airline! And, thank goodness for the foresight to fly instead of taking the bus, because on our way back, we heard from other passengers at the airport that the Honduran borders had indeed been closed because of the elections. (Our friend Andrea had vaguely mentioned that as a possibility, but even she had not really believed it. I had decided to stand my ground and to refuse to take those chances, since I couldn't afford to be back to school late again after the Guatemalan shinanigans the last time we had undertaken a weekend getaway. Thus the decision to fly, despite it being the more expensive option...)

Anyway, Nicaragua was excellent. We spent one night in Leon and two nights in Granada. Both were colonial cities, but Granada has a more vibrant night life, a far richer history, and more character overall. While in Leon, we went "volcano-surfing", which is basically sliding down the sandy side of volcano Cerro Negro on a board made of wood and removable plastic. We hiked up to the top of the active volcano (it has erupted 23 times within the last 160 years) with our boards, walked along the rim of the crater to the sandy side of the volcano, put on our protective gear (jumpsuits and goggles), sat down on the boards facing the bottom of the hill, and then braced ourselves as we slid down the 45-degree incline. From the top of the hill, you can't see the bottom half of the hill, because the hill has a sharp dropoff after that halfway point. We could only see what appeared to be a tiny white speck at the bottom, which the tour guide explained was our truck, waiting for us at the bottom. The actual "surfing" part went rather quickly. Even though I was very nervous, once I started sliding and the wind started to blow tons of dirt in my face, I had forgotten all about the fear. Of course, I had to be the only person who actually lost balance and fell off my board halfway. :) Geoff took a video of me at the end, but that being after my fall, I had already lost most of my momentum and was easing my way down the rest of the hill. Still, it was an awesome experience! I would highly recommend it.

In Granada, Geoff and I also did a canopy tour, since neither of us had done it before. I was nervous, once again -- not because I didn't trust our tour guides. In fact, our tour guides lead about 150 people through their setup each day, and are very professional. Instead, I was nervous about messing up myself. In the end, it was amazing, and for being out there for about an hour, plus the rides to and from the beautifully lush forest, it was only $30 for each of us! That's an awesome deal!

Greg, Andrea, Geoff, and I also had a good time just hanging out at the local bars at night. I have developed a brand new appreciation for Flor de Caña, a type of Nicaraguan rum. :) I also particularly enjoyed the local "nacatamal", which is a tamale stuffed with juicy meat. Yum!

And now, happy December! I really cannot believe that Christmas is right around the corner. I cannot WAIT!

Visa!

Geoff's visa app finally got approved yesterday! yay! I cannot tell you how long and grueling this process has been. We had started it months before moving here, but he actually had to go back to the States to gather additional paperwork in September, because his lawyer had been unclear about which papers were needed the first time around. (It was v. fortunate that this trip coincided with M&M's wedding, so he could just extend the wedding trip to take care of the stuff instead of making a separate trip just for the sake of gathering papers...)

The problem is that he currently lives here on 90-day tourist visas only, and every time he exits the country (to go to even a neighboring country for a short trip), he would have to go back to the States to obtain all of those docs again; the docs required need to be date-stamped around his latest entry to El Salvador.

He and his lawyers had been down to the immigration offices several times, and each time they would ask him to obtain more paperwork, mostly from the States. It would take weeks to pull together and get mailed here, and the process would repeat itself. Finally, yesterday his stars were all aligned, and they accepted his application! yay! (It actually helped out that I am working for the American school, because apparently my work visa is issued by a higher authority -- something like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs -- and so it helped legitimize both his overall application and his particular reason to wish to stay in El Salvador.) It still was a pain and took a whole day, but at least for now they've accepted his money and taken his picture, so we think it's going to be all good. :)

So, in celebration, we took his lawyer's assistant out to dinner. It was good times, and the steaks we had were amazing... :) Afterwards, Geoff and I were both feeling serious food coma, so we called it a quiet Friday night. We watched "Changeling" at home, which is really intense! Much better than what we had expected based on its RottenTomatoes ratings. I would definitely recommend it.

Rain Damage in El Salvador

As some of you may have heard or read in the news, well over a hundred lives were lost last weekend in El Salvador as a result of the flooding and landslides caused by the heavy rain. Basically, the poor of the country cannot afford to live in areas that are well-insulated from weathering elements, and many of them resort to living in potential landslide areas. While people were still sleeping on early Sunday, the rain grew very heavy and buried entire houses or townships under the mud. It has been several days, and the death tolls are still rising steadily as they search for the missing people.

Even areas near lakes and the ocean were severely impacted. A country club that Geoff and I had only very recently visited near Lago de Ilopango was completely destroyed. One of my friends who lives by the beach said that although her particular area (El Tunco) is fine, just down the street (within about a 15-minute drive), other people had to swim to get out of the shoulder-high muddy water. Those people lost their homes and all of their clothes and their belongings in the flood. The situation is very sad, because I am not sure whether there is a plan yet for helping the people rebuild their homes, beyond providing them with immediate relief. One of the American teacher's maid lost her nephew, her nephew's wife, and their 7-year-old child in the flood. Her own home is destroyed as well, but her family's lives were spared as they had been staying with her sister for the weekend.

The irony is that our lives, for the most part, were relatively unaffected by the rain. Geoff and I were out late last Saturday at the Marine Birthday Ball held by the US Embassy, and didn't get home until about 5am Sunday. Sure, it was raining for a good amount of the time, but we had no idea the extent of damage that the rain had done to other people's lives until we woke up with a slight hangover and read the news Sunday afternoon. It's just another example of the vast disparity between the social classes here in El Salvador...

Please keep El Salvador's victims in your prayers. If you wish to help out in some way financially, Tim's blog post lists some options for donations at the bottom.

Beach and Halloween weekends

It has been two weekends since Andrea's Oktoberfest party. True to our words, Geoff and I rented a car and planned to get away last weekend. It happened to be an international surf competition weekend in El Tunco, so the beach town was particularly lively with activities throughout the night. Greg came along, and at the beach we ran into Brad and Dave (who go down there every chance they get, to surf). Dave decided to share our small cabin and to stick around overnight to party, so the four of us spent the weekend eating a lot of yummy tacos and burritos, and relaxing by the lovely beach. :) Dave also took Geoff out to surf on the ocean, and the boys stayed out on the water until dark. The weekend was so relaxing, it was exactly what we had been missing...

This past weekend was a long weekend down here in El Salvador. Coinciding with Halloween is All Saints' Day or All Souls' Day, when the locals celebrate family members who have passed, as well as all of the Catholic saints. So, we got Monday off as a holiday. Since there were some talks of going out for Halloween, Geoff and I decided to stick around to take part in the celebrations. On Saturday night, we donned our home-made costumes, and headed out on the town. (I was "Comma Sutra", and Geoff was a guy with a cup-"telephone" connecting him to his penis, wearing a shirt that said, "Who Says Men Don't Listen?") We started at Zanzibar and met some pretty nice folks who were Jon's friends, and then we went with Andrea and her friends to Alambique (spelling) at the Multi-Plaza. We danced there for a long time, and the boys split a bottle of vodka -- it was a pretty fierce drinking night, for them anyway. By the time we all rolled out of there, it was about 2:30am.

Sunday night was pretty chill. In fact, we slept in on Sunday for much of the day. :) Geoff and I had planned on inviting a few people over for dinner (our first dinner party!), so as soon as we woke up from our hangover nap, we had to get rolling on purchasing supplies and cooking. I wanted to cook Chinese food, but none of our friends eats very spicy foods and one of our friends is vegetarian, so Geoff and I brainstormed some options that would meet everyone's dietary preferences. In the end, we cooked: stirfried eggplant; tofu in spicy bean sauce; mushrooms with garlic; and "three-cup" chicken drumsticks. Geoff also made capirinas for everyone, which tasted fresh and amazing. :) After dinner, we set up a projector (brought over by one of our friends) and watched Cidade de Deus, which was fantastic.

All in all, it has been a couple of beautiful weekends! Next week will be the Marine ball, which is a black-tie event held by the US Embassy, including dinner and dancing. I'm thrilled about it! I love playing dress-up. :)

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PS. We bought a car! yay! We're keeping our fingers crossed that there won't be major repairs necessary. So far, we've only found very minor issues with the car, but we're taking it to the mechanic on Monday to get them examined more thoroughly.

Oktoberfest, El Centro

Geoff and I have had a few very uneventful weekends, because I've had to catch up on work before the quarter ends. By this weekend, both of us were going stir-crazy and wanting to go away somewhere for the weekend. But, we had promised our friend Andrea that we would go to her Oktoberfest party, so we decided to stick around the city...

We decided, instead, to make the best out of Andrea's party. We went and bought a ton of beers (a mix of cheap and nice beers), bought two giant beer mugs, got some plastic cups for beer pong, and made jello shots! Andrea's party turned out to be totally fun, even though the Americans mostly turned in somewhat early. We ended up partying with her Salvadorean friends, plus Jon, after everyone else had left. We taught the Salvadorean girls how to play flip cup and beer pong, and they taught us how to play Vikingo and Marcas. And we silly-danced. It was pretty awesome times. :)

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One thing we did try to do this weekend was to go down to El Centro to visit the Palacio Nacional, the Catedral Metropolitana, and the Teatro Nacional, which are all on the same block in El Centro. We got inside the cathedral, and it was pretty neat, but both the National Palace and the National Theatre were closed to visitors. What a shame! We were also warned by our taxi driver to not walk around past the 2 block-by-3 block area, since El Centro is not at all a safe barrio. Anyway, the cab driver said we'd be OK if we stayed around the very bustling parts of town, so we didn't press our luck. We left pretty soon after visiting the cathedral, since I wasn't feeling very safe. Afterwards, Geoff said that he felt like people were giving him pretty unfriendly vibes. I am not sure whether I had felt the same, but it was definitely a very impoverished part of the city. As soon as we had gotten out of the cab, a waft of something in the air had told me that there were homeless people nearby; and sure enough, you could see them every few feet, huddled next to a building or holding out their hands to beg for money. According to things I've read on the internet, El Centro suffers from a lot of street violence, and isn't really safe to visit at any hour.

Generally speaking, I'm feeling a little frustrated by the security situation here. Some days, it seems like we cannot really go anywhere. Even on our way down to a popular bar one night (La Luna Arte y Casa), a kid jumped out in front of our taxi cab in an attempt to stop us -- probably for no good. The cab driver eventually drove around the kid, and the cop car behind us picked up the kid and took him down to the station, but it's hard to say that we're going to keep being so lucky.

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Anyway, the first quarter is already over! Can you believe it?

I need a break. We've only had one long weekend since the school started. The next 3-day weekend will be the weekend of Halloween. I cannot wait!