March Already?

Hello there. My title pretty much explains how I feel that it is March! I can't believe it is March...Holy MOLY! Anywhoo I thought I would finally catch up on some blogging and let you all know what I've been up to the past two weeks after Mexico. Things have been pretty crazy and busy, at times stressful but for the most part going well. I would rather be busy than not knowing what to do with my free time.

Week of March 2nd-8th
I am continuing to very much enjoy my volunteer work. Now I do my volunteering every Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. On Tuesday we brought some things to do with the kids at the orphange. Our director and his wife bought some puzzles, coloring books, and sidewalk chalk that we can bring to do with the kids. They loved it! They especially liked the puzzles or rompecabezas in Spanish. On Monday and Wednesdays is when I have my tutoring from 2-7pm. I go in and contribute extra hours after volunteering or on Fridays when I don't have any classes. I am getting to know my tutor Juila that I have now really well and sadly this upcoming week (the week of the 16th) is my last week with her :( Wednesday after class Julia invited me out to dinner with her and some of the other teachers from Celas. Originally I thought that some of the other students were going to come but it ended up being only me and Juila and about 4 or5 more teachers (Julia's sister Carolina, Juila, Maria, Ana, and Karina) from Celas. We went to a cute little Italian restaurant called Gesepies, I had a salad and some pizza :) The pizza here is a little different...especially the sauce, but it was pretty good overall. I love hanging out with the teachers from Celas outside of school. I believe I have mentioned before that the teachers at Celas are more like friends than teachers. For volunteering on Thursday I decided that I wanted to plan an activity with the kids on my own. I have actually brought the activities that our director bought a couple of times, so I wanted to do something new. I bought stuff to make nametags with the kids. I have now been working with the same small group of about 12 kids or so, which is nice because it is easier to get to know them that way. There are two groups of kids that are not allowed to leave the home for their safety (not even for school) and I work with one of those groups. Making nametags was a success, they loved them. The government barely gives the orphange money, so it felt nice to be able to support any way I can. Also on Thursday there was a large dinner at Celas with a group of local students that attend the same university (Rafeal Landivar) as us. My teacher for Guatemala History who we call Vivi organized the whole thing. Students from one of her classes attended. The local students brought Guatemalan food and we brought and made American food. It was real fun talking with some of the students, although most of them are unlike the average Guatemalan student and are pretty well-off financially (Rafael Landivar is a private university). Afterwards Jenna, Brianna, Nicole, and I met up with our friend Viktor at his apartment and then went out to a local disoteca with one of our friends from La Rumba (our salsa place). Friday was pretty chill, I didn't do much...I brought some laundry in, printed off some things for class and then I went to Celas and worked on a paper with Julia that I had due for history the following week. Afterwards I was supposed to go out to dinner with Freddy, but he bailed so Julia invited me out to dinner/hot chocolate with her, Carolina, and Karina. It was so nice of her to invite me unplanned! We went to a cute little place that had really good hot chocolate. It was more of a snack place than a dinner place but I still was filled up by hot chocolate, bread, and a tostada (crunchy tortilla shell with meat). Aftwerwards we went back to Celas for the graduation. There were very few people at this graduation but it was still fun. Afterwards I went to a new little cafe/bar called Ojala. They play live music there. It was really fun seeing another new place and it was fun just to relax and have a glass of wine in that environment.

Weekend Sum UP
Saturday
-Slept-in and tanned on Jenna's Patio
-Tried to plan my Spring Break Trip. We can not stay with our host families during Holy Week. **Thus half the group has family coming to visit (*cough* *cough* my family is not able), 8 are going to Belice, and me, Shannon, Brianna, and Jenna are going to Honduras! Its been hard planning it tho, I am still in the process today. I am actually going to Puerta Vayerta Mexico with Jenna first to see her family who is vacationing there and then we are flying from there to Honduras. Keep in mind I just figured this all out this past weekend (today is March 15th) and not the weekend that I am currently writing about haha...**
-Ate dinner at home with Sonia
-Went out with Steph, Mike A, Mike L, Chris, and Matt for dessert. I had dessert and they had pizza, it was another Italian place on the other side of central park
-Afterwards I watched Slumdog Millionare with almost half the group at Blue Angel, an internet and movie cafe. Not quick my type of movie but I thought it was good.
Sunday
-Went to the coast and beach of Camperico!
-Met Jenna, Nicole, and Shannon, and three of our amigos Viktor, Juan, and Chuchu, in central park at 7:00am.Ta
-We took 1 micro bus, 1 chicken bus, a smaller tuk tuk, and then another chicken bus to the beach for a total of about 4 hours.
-Got to the beautiful coast and I got to ride a horse on the beach! We only did a few laps around the beach with them, but mine was lazy and after awhile had to be pulled by one of the little boys that was 'renting' them to us.
-Swam in the wonderful ocean for the first time since being here.
-Tanned in the warm sun
-Had shrimp for lunch...with eyes! Yes, the shrimp had eyes. haha we had to peel them ourselves. They were a lot of work but I guess they were pretty tasty....
-Tanned and swam some more
-Got dressed and had some icecream before we left.
-Had the most interesting trip back.....
We took one bus and then at the next station we found out that since the hour was so late there was no more buses back to Xela. The group wanted to stay overnight in that town where the station was and I was like...ummm no thanks I really want to go back to Xela! After much debate and frustration we took a mircobus to a different station where there was "probably" going to be another bus (before we found this option the only option was to take a direct taxi back to Xela which was a little spendy to some...but not to me so we opted out of that). I kind of had a break down of frustration on the way because I was scared of the late hour and that we werent going to make it back to Xela. However it turned out well in the end...Instead of waiting for the bus at that station, which I believe arrived right after us, we took a truck back to Xela! It was like...an animal truck..haha...with us being the animals. Looking back on it, it was a little dangerous and it was a chilly ride back, but it was quite the adventure! We had left the beach a little before 5 and finally arrived in Xela a little bit after 9pm.