El Dia del Diablo y San Juan del Obispo

Dear diary, I made a new friend today. Actually I made SIX new friends today, go me! First of all, let me just say that today was an AWESOME day. This morning for breakfast I had pancakes with bananas and this new-to-me fuit called nispero. Nisperos are native to Guatemala and are only harvested for a few weeks every year in November and December. They resemble small orange-colored pears and taste like a combination of a pear and a plum. They have a really bad shelf life and turn brown after a day or two, so they aren't really exported that frequently. At the end of the season, the nisperos are fermented and turned into wine. They were really good with breakfast and Ignacio (my host father) told me all about this town called San Juan del Obispo which is where the wine is made. This town is also famous for making homemade chocolate that is flavored with different ingredients such as rice, almonds and macadamia nuts. Its not like chocolate here where its regular chocolate with chunks of nuts in it, in San Juan del Obispo they grind the ingredients together so its more like a flavoring.
So I get to school and guess what? Today we're having a field trip to none other but San Juan del Obispo! I was so happy! Here are some shots of nisperos. After they're harvested they put them in baskets and wrap them with newspapers to try to keep the air away from them. This keeps them from going brown too quickly.

I bought a bottle of nispero wine there and also a bottle of cherry wine. Delicioso!
We also went to the chocolate factory! Which in reality is just a lady who makes all this chocolate in her backyard. She gets shipments of cocoa beans from the coast of Guatemala. She roasts them over a little wood fire in her backyard, then peels them and grinds them over heat with whatever flavor she's making. She lets the melted chocolate cool a bit, then pats it out into these thin circular patties. After they dry, she packs them in groups of four and sells them. She gave us a bunch of free samples. My favorite was the almond flavor, though they were all a bit too sweet for my taste. It actually upset my stomach a little, so I didn't buy any. Afterwards she made us fresh macadamia flavored hot cocoa, and of course I couldn't say no to that, but after a few sips I figured it wasn't worth getting sick over and I politely dumped the rest. It did taste good though. Her house also had awesome views. That town you can see is Antigua, San Juan del Obispo is about a twenty minute bus ride away.

(Here's a nice cathedral that was in town)

Which reminds me, I rode my first chicken bus today! There's a program that sends down old school buses from the US to Guatemala so that they can use them for public transportation. The people here paint them in super bright colors, they're quite the sight. This is their public bus system, but tourists call them "chicken buses" because its not uncommon for livestock to be running around on them. The whole scene is kind of chaotic and comical, especially since the buses are the ones that are made for like first and second graders. The aisles are super narrow and your knees dont really fit between the seats. Sadly there were no chickens on the bus we took, but a stray dog did wander on and we had to wait for him to wander back off.

So I made my first friend on the bus! Her name is Maria, she's from Austria and has been studying Spanish at my school for the last two months (her Spanish is really good). She's leaving this week to take another month of classes in Costa Rica (what a life!) so we're only going to be friends for a few days :)
After the trip a woman from class asked if I'd like to hang out with her and another student, so I happily accepted. This afternoon there was a big festival for El Dia del Diablo. Antigua is a really religious town, they have festivals for the saints all the time. El Dia del Diablo is a day that symbolizes the expulsion of sin in preparation for the birth of Christ. People are pretty much vowing to be good for Christmas and stop fighting with their enemies for the next three weeks. People from the town get together and make this big replica of Satan from wood and paper mache, then everyone gathers around it, they set it on fire and people set off fireworks all over the place. They also let go of these floating lanterns which were pretty (if you've ever seen Disney's Tangled, it was like that, but only one at a time).

So at the festival, me and my classmates met up with some of their friends. I should mention that these women are all in their late 50s to early 70s. We also happened to pass one of the lady's salsa teachers in the street. He is a 31 year old guy who came here a few weeks ago to teach dancing. He's originally from Korea but was living in Queens for the last two years, so he knows a bit of English. All six of us went out to dinner and had a really nice night :) One of the women, Mary, is a retired nurse. She was telling me about some of the other non-profits for medical professionals here (including a local hospital for people with developmental disabilities) so we're going to try to meet up again sometime soon. Everyone seems lovely and I'm glad to have people to do some touristy stuff with now :D
Here are some random shots. The first one is of Paulie, the talking parrot that lives with my host family.

Here is my language school. We have classes around this garden every day, its beautiful.

And finally, here's my money shot! (haha) My favorite is the 1 Quetzal bill because it has a little clear window in it which I think is cool. 1 dollar = 7 quetzales, give or take.