Coming Soon...

New York City Trip

Feb. 7-9

I just need to upload my photos and organize my thoughts about this trip!

Belize

March 9-17

Canada

I have been a failure to my followers. Just kidding, this blog was mostly for my trip to Honduras but I have done a fair share of traveling after that. As you all know, life is a journey in itself so my blog will always have some sort of relevance, even if the traveling I am doing is only to the store.

I'm a list person so I will list my adventures by occurance this summer. This will take a few days to get them all out so stay tuned!

Canada

After being delayed a day in getting back from Honduras, (see Claire's blog for details) Amelia, Shannon, Nancy (my car), Sydney and I took off for an adventure to Canada. I should have probably not scheduled the two so close together but I was fortunate not to get sick when I returned from my month long excursion. With little time to plan for this trip, we booked a hotel in Winnipeg, Canada not knowing what we were doing. It's an adventure, right? Wrong. Although we did not really want our parents input, after hearing from several people that this hotel had had recent stabbings and that cars get robbed on the regular, we decided to upgrade to a Marriott. We drove 11.5 hours and avoided flooding along I-29. We got through the border after intense questioning (probably because Sydney's passport picture looked like a mug shot :)) and made it to Winnipeg without a GPS! All of our phones were roaming which we hadn't really thought about.

The first night we went to a nice dinner, got to order drinks like big people, and headed to the hotel to settle in. We got lucky in that our hotel was brand new and we were not likely to be stabbed there. Ha!

Friday we shopped around in a cool area of town called The Forks which was in downtown Winnipeg. That night we went to a dance club called Alive and had a great time dancing, meeting some locals and enjoying their accents. Saturday, Sydney and I went to the Titanic museum which was soooo cool. We were obsessed with Titanic as kids if you didn't know this already. It was fun to see what things were real and not real from the movie. We were also assigned identities. I was Ms. Funk...she died and Sydney's identity lived. That night we went to Puckacinos...I mean Buccacinos. Luckily we sat outside because the inside smelled really gross and the service was not very good. After that we went to Whiskey Dix, a dance club with some live country music and a patio with more hip-hop type music.

While we were in Canada we also enjoyed amazing crepes, some horse races, and a giggly waiter that served us amazing yam fries!

Allahandro.

Betting at the races!

First night out with our new outfits from Forever 21.

Titanic Museum!

Whiskey Dix night...thanks self timer!

I'm probably forgetting a lot but all in all it was a great trip with my besties. We have all been friends since Kindergarten or 1st grade and I'm so lucky to have them.

Starting to Pack, Beginning to Panic

Don’t worry. I’m not actually panicking but I am realizing that I don’t have as much space in my suitcase as I thought I did. I guess I have the space but the weight might do me in. I have 4 pounds worth of coffee, souvenirs, a few books, and my clothes to factor in. Oh well, it will work out.

This week we met a girl named Haley from Alabama who is going to language school before she sets out to do some awesome mission work in a remote village at an orphanage. This is her 4th trip to Honduras doing work with orphans and this is her longest trip yet...2 months! I'm getting rid of some of my baggage by donating some of my "Honduran" items to her such as Dramamine, bug spray, sunscreen, Pepto, and anything else she could use on her trip. I don't have a link to it now, but she just started a Tumblr account if anyone wishes to follow her travels.

As for today, my last day here in Copan, I have had a relaxing morning. I got up and ate with Claire before she took off for kindergarten and I went back to bed for awhile. I'm now procrastinating before I do my homework and thank you cards for my teacher and family. I need to take a lot of pictures today so I can show anyone who is interested when I get back. I think I'm done shopping and tonight will be the big night of packing.

Yesterday morning we were supposed to go to the coffee farm but our driver didn't show up so we did the next best thing....shopping! Claire had to do some shopping for her nanny girls and family and I found some more things as well. In the afternoon during class we went to the coffee farm...the driver had completely forgotten that he was supposed to pick us up that morning and came and got us immediately. That's service! Anyway, the coffee farm is called Guacamaya which is the national bird (the red macaw). We saw a little bit of the process of coffee before it's roasted and the lady giving us the tour used a machine to take off the shell of the beans so I could buy a pound of green unroasted beans for my dad. After that, we went to a flower shop and I took some flower pictures. Kind of random, but it was pretty!

Last night we went to a restaurant called Nia Lola's and it was so good! I got a Gringo taco which was 2 tortillas with chicken and cheese in between with salsa and guacamole. We then went and got chocolate covered fruit like we do every night because it's only like 50 cents for a big piece. Luckily we just discovered this place so we haven't gone TOO much.

That's all for now from Honduras. Thanks again for reading. I'll post when I get back to the USA! More pictures to come on Facebook as well.

Coffee before it is roasted.

Coffee plants in the shade.

My teacher...we are too much alike.

Dinner!

Us at the school!

Playing Catch Up

I have not been very good at updating the past week or so. I apologize and now I’ll take the time to bring this thing up to date. We have done most of the things on our to-do list except for visiting a coffee plantation. That will be checked off the list Thursday. As far as the rest of the week, we plan on hanging out, going to class, and doing some last minute shopping. We are going to return to the bird park tomorrow because the passes are good for three days. Today a new student arrived from Alabama and we are taking her as well since she has not gone yet.

Last Thursday during class we took a “field trip” to the hot springs or “aguas termales” with the teachers and the other students in the school. The road there and back was very curvy and when it rains (which it did) the road gets washed out and it was hard to get the van up the muddy hill on the way back. The hot springs were really pretty and we spent  a lot of time in an area where the hottest water filtered down into other little hot tub areas and the further down you went, the less hot the water was. We also used the mud for mud masks because it’s great for the skin.

Friday we arrived at kindergarten to no children. We helped the teachers set up a stage and cut a large crown out of cardboard and covered it in silver paper. We couldn’t figure out what this event was for when asking the teachers about it. We figured it out soon enough…a beauty pageant! It was so cute but that would never fly in the US! They had to come dressed as a sports player (horseback rider, tennis player, soccer were the popular choices) and then they had an evening wear category as well as introducing themselves and asking for our support.

Saturday we took a trip to Guatemala. Let’s just say the tour wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The ride there was supposed to be a little over an hour. 3 hours later and a flat tire later, we arrived and went to this really cool cathedral where they worship a Jesus made out of black metal that they call “Cristo negro.” We then ate at a fast food place called “Pollo Campero” which is like the equivalent to KFC in the States. We then attended mass where we sat so far back that all the Spanish blurred into words that we couldn’t understand and every once in awhile the incense would waft back to us and almost knock us off our feet. We then tried to convince our guide to take us back to Honduras but he insisted on driving us through all these small villages even though it was pouring rain and we were all getting car sick. I had never been to happy to see the “Bienvenidos a Honduras” sign in my life. The plus side of this trip is that we all got Guatemala stamps in our passports and a pin for my pin collection from the assistant director of tourism at some gas station. And playing cards for Claire’s card collection.

Hopefully I have time to update once more before returning, but thank you all so much for reading and the comments. It means a lot!

Toucan!

Sign.

One of the beauty pageant girls.

Another pretty dress.

The stage we helped set up.

Where the hot springs came out of a rock.

The mud bath and our teachers.

Parque de aves

Unfortunately my pictures are not uploading very quickly so if you would like to see more, check out my Facebook album. Today we went to the bird park and it was probably one of my trip high lights. I got to hold multiple large and small birds and the park itself was very pretty. Our tickets are good for three days too so I will probably go back another day. Our guide spoke English and knew a lot about the birds and the park. They also grow coffee there! There were 3 big owls and 2 tiny ones as well that were really cool.

I'll update more later! As for now I am putting up loads of photos on Facebook. Check out Claire's blog as well!



Update! (And a pic of the infamous sign)

Over halfway done with our trip! It has been going so fast but I will definately be excited to be home. On Tuesday Claire was not feeling that well and instead of going to the bird park, Sarah and I went on the zipline. We took a truck up to the top of the "canopy" and took a series of 14 zip lines back down to where we started. Sarah took most of the pictures for that so you will have to check out Facebook for those. The zip line was really fun and the view was great. One of the lines was over a kilometer long!

Back to the horse story. On the way to the zip line I found the sign that I took out. It's still hanging there all jankity!

Yesterday we went to the Kindergarten again. They worked on their numbers 3 and 4 and letters "m" and "s." It's crazy to think that my friends and I were that small when we became friends!

The building that they have Kindergarten in.

Up close.

We got our nails did during class one day! It only costs about 3 bucks to get your nails painted here!

The old Ixbalanque building.

Last night after a downpour we walked to viavia for salsa dancing. We decided to just watch and played cards and ate a nasty flan like cake and some nachos. Oh yeah and our cat friend was there.

Hydrocortisone for my bug bites!



Today we are going to the Hot Springs with our teachers and the other American students. After that we are going to Jim's Pizza for dinner! Time for some Americanish food. Our friends leave tomorrow for Tegucigalpa for 2 months. We will miss them! More updates and pictures of the hot springs later!

More Pictures

Our other American friends and us!

A sweet mural on the way into Copan.

A Macaw at the ruins

Classic jumping picture...on top of a temple.

Climbing.

The "Mayan Book"

A temple thing...

Where they place the head of the loser of a game.

A part of the Mayan drainage system.

A witch doctor statue.