The Moldy Mesita De La Noche

We were going to update the volcano entry to include some more flattering pictures, but then this happened and so VOILA - a new entry.

THIS being: a horrendous mold smell in our "luxury" apartment in the Centro Linguistico Internacional (CLI for short, different from the TV series "CLI: Antigua"). One minute we were almost asleep, the next minute sniffing around, looking for the culprit. We blamed towels, the closet, musty clothes, each other, other students, outside, our language teacher who really had no connection to the incident and finally the Guatemalan government. We were on the edge of giving up when Em opened the drawer of the Mesita De La Noche and almost keeled over. For those of you not currently enrolled in Spanish Language School or unfluent in the beautiful language, Mesita De La Noche is a nightstand. It was a raunchfest, to quote my blisteringly hot wife. We diplomatically discussed the best ways to deal with the problem, ranging from ignoring it to hurling it out the window. Alas, bars killed the latter idea.

Truth of the matter was it got a little heated as we commanded one another to deal with the janky furniture. The story ends well, with us sleeping soundly, the nightstand in the far corner of the room and a makeshift nighstand concocted out of an ordinary stool. Brilliant! Being married is exciting, but when you throw a moldy Mesita in the mix it's downright caliente!

Now that you've suffered through our latest entry with us, enjoy pictures of some random Guatemalan kids (Brenda is on the left, and there's another cute little girl on the right)



A much more slimming picture of myself and Em on Acatenango (just shy of 14,000 feet in case you missed the last entry). We're smiling because we're still 4,000 feet shy of the summit.



And a gratuitous tourist shot of an indigenous woman walking with a basket on her head next to some doofy guys looking for their car in front of a fantastically beautiful colonial arch.




If you've read this far and haven't lost interest yet, you're about to be rewarded with some fun Antigua facts NOT in the Lonely Planet guidebook.

-Minimum drying time for clothes during the rainy season: take them to another country. Seriously, one week and counting for our first load of laundry hanging in our room.

-Size of Guatemalan mosquitos: Em went to pet a cute dog and noticed it had a really long snout and wings.

-Non stop lightning. As soon as the sky gets dark enough, it's lit up with serious pyrotechnics. Only locals can tell the difference between thunder and small volcanic eruptions without climbing to the top and checking for flying sparks and hot magma.

-The granola is really good. It's got pumpkin seeds in it. Bet you didn't know that!

-Not really a fact, but it would be cool if everytime someone stubs their toe wearing Chacos they called it "Taco your chaco" because your sandal folds in half like a taco. And gave us credit for it. And sponsorship. Chaco, USA Inc. That means you.