Antigua

Ok, I see that blogging is addictive so I'm going to keep going! My next topic is how life here feels very antiquated compared to the US. First of all, all the keys here are skeleton keys. This does not feel very modern to me at all. NOT AT ALL. Secondly, I haven't encountered a stove that has an automatic spark. You either have to light the burner using matches or a lighter. It scared me at first because I thought I'd burn myself, but you get used to it, I guess. Just seems like a lot of work to light it manually every time.

Third, we do not have a dryer, a microwave or cable. I've asked around and these things are available and not expensive, but it could be that I'm living with a hippie who doesn't believe in luxury. However, when I look around at all the neighbors terraces (we back up to a whole row of apartments- not the street)- everyone else seems to have the laundry hanging out to dry too. I asked my Spanish teacher if people don't have dryers because they are expensive or use a lot of enegy and she said they are fairly common, but I'm not seeing that in my neighborhood, which is middle class. I miss having a microwave but I've gotten used to eating everything cold. My Spanish school does not have a microwave either and I've yet to see a dishwasher anywhere!

Also, there is no such thing as pre-made pasta sauce here. Since pasta is very popular here and I don't have a rice cooker and I'm not going to take the time to cook rice that's not instant rice and I'm walking more than ever, I've been eating quite a bit of pasta. I haven't made a pasta sauce from scratch since I was a little kid. Luckily I remembered that you need both the paste and the sauce to make it taste good... ok well the second time around. I've been working on perfecting my sauce with sauteed onions, garlic, mushrooms, salt, pepper and oregano. It gets better every time! Yum...


The first time I went to a grocery store I was completely lost. It takes some time to get used to the food here- menus are not easy to understand either. The names of food here is different than in the rest of the Spanish speaking world. For example, instead of aguacate for avocado it's palta. I was lost when I went to order a Philadephia roll for the first time at this sushi place nearby. I was like, what is palta? They told me it's a vegetable. This is all in Spanish of course. That didn't really tell me it's avocado, but it all turned out ok. It's taken me awhile, but I'm finally getting it down and can order in a restaurant with some certainy of what I'm actually going to get.

Chau for now...