Then it was on to the next part of the adventure. We went to the tourist markets via the airport (I hadn´t even put looking at planes on the list, but that was a little surprise). When we got there we were pretty hungry and we were expecting to have to pay quite a bit because the cafes there are a little bit upper class. However, when arrived we saw that there was a little family under a tarp in the pouring rain selling traditional Guatemalan food. So Victor and I were able to have mains, dessert and a drink for pretty much what we both paid to get into the museum (equivalent of $3.50). And the food is yum! Tostadas with beans and salsa, enchiladas, rellenitos, atol…yum yum yum. And it was a little family business and there was nowhere to sit, so the dad set up some stools for us beside their esky which acted as our table and we chatted to them about their business as it poured with rain around us. Then we set off to look at the markets and started our Christmas shopping. It was very fun. I bought at least two presents which made me have little burstings of joy inside me.

Then it was time for the cafe bit, and a bit earlier a friend had rung to say that she was going to have a McCafe date with some other friends before church. McCafe is right next door to my house and it is surprisingly good here in Guatemala. So we went home and hung out with those people and then after they went to church Victor went and got the computer and we drank coffee and hot chocolate and talked about our trip and searched for plane tickets.

Then to make the joy complete, at the end of the night we bought the plane tickets and jumped around in excitement and Skyped Dad and Mil and then had trouble sleeping because of the excitement and that ended a Great Sunday Arvo in Guatemala.

(I have just realised that our ‘adventures’ were very placid, but I think that is the way in Guatemala, there is way too much undesired non-placid adventure going on here that it is good to have low-key adventures….or maybe I am just getting old…or maybe I just liked the way arvo and adventures sounded beside each other.)

It sure did make me smile and think fondly of the young men who I am fond of.

I am loving living in my new apartment. It is so lovely in the mornings, it is on the 12th floor and the sun comes in really big glass doors and fills the whole house. There is also a balcony which is so nice to sit on.

The first day of the month is also the anniversary of when Victor and I started going out. Last night we celebrated with the girls who I live with- Megan and Erica, and Tracy, and Megan´s boyfriend when he later arrived- by cooking a feast. I had a dream to cook pesto pasta but went to the shops only to find that basil is really expensive at the supermarket. I decided to make coriander pesto pasta because coriander costs about 10% of basil, and it didn´t work out too bad at all. Then Tracy made a ripper salad and Erica made some garlic bread, although the first batch burnt.

Afterwards Victor and I decided to try and do something alone, so we went out searching for a coffee shop, but they were all closing. So we went to a look out with the sort of good view you get in Guatemala, lots of cars and noise, but you can see some pretty fairy lights, and it started to rain. So in the end we went back to Victor´s house where his parents were, and had hot chocolate. Most likely we are destined to live our relationship in community. Which is just the way I want it.

It is very nice and I like my room. We have been working to set it up, and that is a bit spacially challenging, but exciting. It is lovely to have independence again, and buy my own food and have my own space. I have a lot of hope for being there.

On Sunday, my first morning there, even though none of my new flatmates are around at the moment, Victor and I celebrated by going for a run along Las Americas, which is a big road nearby that they close down part of on Sundays and set up horse rides and trampolines, and bikes and so on. Then we came home and I made pancakes and fruit salad and coffee. Yum, what a great way to celebrate.

I thought that I had come away well from Belize. The other seemed to have many bites, but I was rejoicing that my blood was not nearly as ‘dulce’. I was wrong. Apparently the sand flies or fleas or mosquitos, or whatever they are, bite you and then days later you realise what has happened when they start to itch and itch and itch. My days and my nights I am suffering from the Belizan wildlife, and I am no longer in Belize.

Tomorrow I am moving into an apartment with two friends from the US. I have a Ryan/Harry Potter sized room, which I am hoping I can be half as space creative in as Ryan. I am very, very happy to be moving. If you are in Guatemala I will cook you a meal.

So I might not be very contactable for a while, a couple of days at least.

I am a proud supporter of people taking holidays.

The other evening Victor and I were going for a walk when he suggested that we get some chocobananos. These are famous in Guatemala and sold from the doors or windows of many houses. They are frozen bananas dipped in chocolate. Yum. Apparently the best ones in Victor’s neighbourhood are at a shop down the road from his house, near his Grandma’s house. So we bought our chocobananos and enjoying every bite walked back to drop in at his Grandma’s house. When we walked in the door we realised that every other member of the family had had the same idea and all were gathered around chatting to Victor’s Grandma. This is the first time I had met her, and I can’t quite tell if it was a success or not because at first she mentioned that she was aware that the only people in the family who could understand or talk to me were Victor and Mario who know English. Victor tried to explain that I can speak Spanish very well, but I am not sure that she believed him because she didn’t understand a word that I shouted to her, Victor, who was in a chair closer to her, having to interpret everything I said. She also thought I looked ‘pura quinceñera’- 15 years old, which would make Victor 10 years older than me and not me 2 years older than him. But all in all, it may have been a success because Mario reported back jealously at the end that she obviously loves me better than him as she patted me on the back in her farewell kiss and she never does that to him.