Posted 4:57 PM by Gobbler
Like a blo-ho ho-ho-ger.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Another little bit of blog. Planning my little trip to tikal. may well be leaving tomorrow. I'm trying to convince myself that i'm going to have an absolutely swimming time there wiht all those ancient ruins and all, but to be honest i can see it all becoming a bit of a disappointment. No no no, iot will be splendid, what am i talking about.

So i graduated yesterday. I'm now the proud member of a certificate that says i have a fair grasp of spanish, but to be quite honest i think i'm still pretty cack at it. however, i did cobble together a fairly amsusing speech. all graduates are required or at lest asked to give a farewell thankyou speech on their last day. Tho i dont have the original with me, i will here record for posterity the speech as recorded in the final draught. get your Spanish caps on. Ah, ive found the master copy. Here goes:

- Amigos todos,

Unas muchas gracias muy grande a todos en la Casa de Lenguas porque me ayudar a aprender l'espanol.

A me maestros, tu conoces que tu eres, una gracias especial. Pese a usualmente cuando estuve cansado o de goma o los dos, ustedes me ensenaron mucho. Es una problema que hay demasiados cosas hacer en la ciudad bolita que es Antigua.

A Tim, por organizar los actividads muy agradable, gracias.

El gusto es mio encontrar muchas gentes de nacionalidads diferents y desarollar los relacions international muy interestente, especialmente Karin. Esplendido.

Aldemas muchas gracias especiales a Karla, por cuidar me por las tres semanas.

Gracias y adios -

And the translation for all those of you who cant be bothered to work out the original:

- Friends all,

A very big thankyou to all at the Casa De Lenguas for helping me to learn spanish.

To my teachers, you know who you are, a special thankyou. Despite usually being tired or hungover, or both, you taught me much. Its a problem when there is so much to do in the city of drunks that is Antigua.

To tim, for organising the pleasant activities, thankyou.

the pleasure is mine to meet many people of different nationalities and to develop very interesting interenational relations. Splendid.

Above all special thanks goes to Karla for putting up with me for the three weeks.

Thankyou and goodbye. -

It went down quite well and i even managed to raise a little chuckle from everyone. All the other speeches were good and some of us went for a celebratory drink afterwards. I bought my maestro of two weeks, eduardo, a beer. However, i was muy cansado than i had been at any point up to then, and didnt make for the best conversation.

It is hard for me to seriousy contemplate leaving Antigua and Guatemala. The last three weeks have flown by and come another week i'll be in peru and thenits more or less non stop til christmas. It will be bvery busy and some part of me at the moment does not want to go. Its a lot of effort you know and i must confess that making so many friendships that you cannot possibly sustain gets very tiring indeed. Yes, the good author is affected my a touch of the melancholy over this. well, not in the mood to write much more, so i dont suppose i will.

So, tikal next, then possibly livingston and copan, honduras. I'll tell you more when i know more.

Papa Smirf: Surely you meant: tengo los zapatos especial y los calcetinos blanco. Luvvlybubbly: hello there. yep, lima looms close. how marvellous. Benteacher-yo: Nice to see you bang out the e's about banging in PC-Bang in banging Seoul. Bangtastic. Does that mean that you can get a job there after all? I thought you had abandoned that particualar escapade bebecause youre not american. wwhat the jiggery pokery? Mr Rogers Mr Shmogers, thats what i say.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gobbler
It never rains but it blogs

Today at the school there was the election of Senorita de Indepencia 2003. Independence day in central america is the 15th of September, when back in 1821 the wily locals split from spain. It was a fairly amusing affair. there were three candidates and each had to say something on a given topic. Unfortunately they have not ridden the international wave of voyeurism and made them all wear swimsuits, but one cant have everything. one lady whose name i can never remember and is known to me simply as tea lady because she always washes out our coffee cups has clearly never been proficient at public speaking. When asked 'what qualities do you think are important for Senorita Independencia?' all she could muster after some time was 'she must be friendly' or something of the sort, then sat down. Given that the woman is around 30 one would have thought she would be able to muster a little more than that, but evidently not. The other two candidates were markedly more vocal, and mirna, the travel liasons lady, ended up winning.

It was all rather disappointing as i had been led to believe that us students would be allowed to vote on the matter but such was not the case. I was all ready to vote for tea lady as she does a mighty fine job of washing up them cups. There is a copnspicuous sign on the wall in the kitchen which reads 'please wash up your own cups' but tea lady does them all. Given the number of times i have stumbled into school at sometime around 8 am either hung over or knackered or both to beeline it to the kitchen for a tumbler of life preserving coffee, i figure that i pretty much owe my surival at the school to her more than any other. I was even going to try and vote for her twice. But it was not to be and it seems that tea lady is destined for a meek future of making tea and washing up cups.

The title of this bloggage is carefully chosen. In order to get to this competition thingy we had to walk through a thunderstorm. In Antigua when it rains, - wait for it Steve, and Paddy and Rich and all ye others for whom this next remark will have heart stirring ramifications - an Adverse Camber in the road causes all the rain water to run down the middle of the streets. They just love their Adverse Cambers here, but it does mean that when it rains hard it is necessary for the foot troop to traverse a raging torrent every block. I have perceived a gap in the market and am developing plans to start boating tours of the city7 for just such occassions. The venice of guatemala.

Oh, i'd just like to say that today i wore the last remaining unused item of clothing i brought with me, my rain jacket. This interesting and to me largely unknown piece of equipment is very interesting. It enables the top half of you to stay completely wet and at the same time ensures that your trousers become twice as wet as they would otherwise do. Interesente.

Making our moistened way across Antigua i was reminded of an elephant ride i took whilst in the highlands of North West thailand some weeks back. Elephant rides are a bit like camel rides and no doubt rides upon other exotic creatures. Everyone wants to go on one because it sounds interesting and makes a good story: 'Oh, you'll never guess what i did!' As far as i remember, camel rides are quite cool but i last went on one when i was ten and most things are qute cool when you are ten. Elephant rides too are quite cool, for the novelty value. Unfortunately the novelty value rubs off after about five minutes. Perhaps i am in the minority, and i am certainly biased. You see, i've been on TWO elephant rides. once in Kanchanaburi in western thailand and once in the north east. The first tiem, a twenty five minute affair, was only marginally boring and did include wading through a river and i did 'drive' so there were certainly highlights. The second time, an hour long waddle through the jungle was, or would have been if it was not so grim that it became funny, quite miserable. Basically, what happens on an elephant ride is this: you climb aboard a likely looking elephant fully limbered with tourist chair on the top. Once aboard, the trip begins. As Mr. Elephant, let us personalise the affair and call him Dumbo - only he doesnt fly - plods off along the same path he takes every day. Not all that exciting for the old boy. Now, elephants are big buggers and as such have big limbs and big hips etcetera. This means that, as the tourist chair is on the back of the elephant, somewhere above the hind legs and thus subject to the normal movement s of the elephants body as it strides forth, the tourist, safely ensconced or at least ensconced in his or her tourist chair, is flung first thirty degrees to the left or thirty degrees to the right5 depending of course upon which foot Dumbo is at present utilising to produce forward motion. This becomes all the moreinteresting when dumbo is going up or down or is on a slope. Furthermore, you might think that Dumbo and his trunkated amigos, being rather big adn all that, would move fairly quickly once they get going, let us postulate at something a little over normal human walking pace. The truth is far from this hypothesis. In truth an elephants speed is closer aligned to the tortoise than the hare. No doubt, i've seen it on nature programs, elephants can get up considerable speen when running or galloping or whatever the elephant equivalent is, but should Dumbo or accomplices ever do this it seems likely that tourist chair on his back would be flung, ripped and broken, from Dumbo's back, to say nothing of the fate of any tourists in the chair. The point here is that elephants dont go very fast. Couple with this the fact that they are as hungry as they are big, and so are constantly decimating shrubbery and bits of tree as they go along. While this is fair enough, i am not one to begrudge either man or beast a good meal, but Dumbo is apparrently unaware or perhaps just unconcerned about his passengers and this causes problems. it means that as Dumbo stomps off the path after a particularly delectable bush he has spotted, Mr and Mrs Tourist are left to be dragged through whatever flora is at their level. Jungles are reknowned for being places with lots of flora and this place, being a jungle and all, was no exception, and so Susie, the girl with me on Dumbo on this little jaunt, and i were repeatedly harrassed by rougue bit of forest that dumbo had decided not to eat but simply go under. Cheers dumbers. In short, there is a good reason why the locals prefer motor cars as a mode of transport.

But has all this got to do with rain, i hear you think. Why was i reminded of such am occassion? Well, let me tell you. This one and a half hour or so trawl through the forest upon Dumbo as already described had another element to it that made it especially memorable. It absolutely pissed with rain the whole way. This meant that every time dumbo dragged us through an overhanging tree, and he was quite adept at it, we not only got scrubbed but showered as well. And when youre sitting in that tourist chair freezing your sodden arse off as you dont have a whoe lot of scope for warming yourself up, watching the jungle crawl past you, any thoughts of having a jolly good time atop a jolly elephant in the jolly jungle in jolly thailand are quickly dispelled. You just want the whole business to be brought to a speedy termination. Happily, the good author has the innate ability to make the best of the worst situations (and, it should be noted, the worst of the best) and so had, all in all, a jolly time. That said, from now on i'll stick to motor cars or, failing that, i'll walk.

Right, another salsa night tonight, and then tomorrow, already, is my last day at the school. this means, as i mentioned last blog, i have a closing speech to write before going out toninght, and theoretically some homework. But i havent much bothered with homework since i was ten and so that element to tonights activities may find itself still upon the shelf come morning. I've also got to decide where to go from here. Tikal, Copan, Livingston or remaining here in antigua. Each possibility has its own unique attraction. Place your bets. BET BET BET!!!

Evil Uncle: Showas da la las. Excelente. Esplendido. Bueno. Will try it out in the salsa club tonight. I'll let you know how it goes. Hockey Rich: Great to have you back mate, feared that Amy may have stolen you away from us forever. Nice to see that youve got your priorities back on track: Three lines about all the work youve been doing and a ten page essay on gambling technique. You would have had a field day in vegas... All the rest: Todo los autros: Epunkes

Posted 6:05 PM by Gobbler
Where the blog are you

Cheers pap smirf for the tips, will be utilised at an as yet undisclosed juncture in proceedings. Not time for much today, just a little taster of my closing speech on friday.

All progresses well in antigua land. not quite sure what to do when i finish, got my speech on friday. What do you think of this: (pronounciation in brackets)

'Ola, (Oh-laaaaaaah)

Muchas gracias (Mooo-charse Grassy-arse)

Todo es bueno (toh-doh is bu-en-oooh)

Esplendido (ES-SPLEN-DI-DO)

Adios.' (Ah-dii-oh-so)

Then i will leg it out of the school. Well, maybe i'll write quite a litle bit more than that.

Posted 5:42 PM by Gobbler
And do I blog you now As I blogged of old

Firstly, there were no troubled waters yesterday, its just that im running out ogf ways to introduce each blog and its a rather esplendido song. Yesterday all was plain sailing and the seas were calm, so there wasnt even any need for a bridge. Quite a storm has whipped up now tho and theres no bridge in sight. Nothing to worry about, dear reader, and nothing to write blog about either.

So, last weekend was the lake atitlan. the entry about it was very rushed but looking at it quickly it seems to suffice. Last night we, that is to say Karla my landlady and Dominic and 'Nana - the other housemate Karin stayed at home as she felt ill - went off to Anee-marie's pueblo (village) for the religious festival, la fiesta religiosa. We wet by a rammed chicken bus (old usa school buses brightly painted, as i mentioned. what i did not mention is that on most of these buses the seats have been unscrewed and moved closer together so as to allow no legroom, and that whereas traditional seat planning on these buses indicats that two peole may sit quite happily on each seat, Guatemalan philosophy on the subject directs that the seats are plenty large enough for three and sometimes four, and that there is ample standing space for many more. On this theory it is almost impossible for the bus to ewver actually become 'full' and therefore occassionally one may find oneself becoming rather squashed. Giving this it is amazing bt true that i have actually heard bus conductors refuse entry because the bus is full. This apparently only happens when he cannot jam any more people into the bus and that the people are packed so tight that in the case of an accident there is no need for people to wear seat belts as they wouldnt go anywhere, which is lucky because there arent any, and the conductor is himself hanging out of the door.

We arrived at the village and entered the casa (house) of the party. The occassional bombas colores (firework) was going off in the distance. the village had obviously made a huge effort and the place looked beautiful; flowers everywhere, decorations and huge ornate candles which were i discovered purchased at great expense from guatemala city. I dont know what special feast day if any was being celebrated as i failed to get any sense out of anyone on the subject. this must be put down to my lack of spanish. After admiring this shrine for a little while we moved into the main congregation area and sat down for dinner. Presently the music, recorded local stuff banged out on massive speakers, began our drink was brought to us. i cant rememebr the name of the stuff but it is a hot drink made from coconuts and pineapples with sugar and milk, and is quite tasty. Then the food was served, the local speciality. It seems a disturbing feature of local specialities that they are rarely actually particularly palatable (bath schapps anyone or a nice scouse hot pot?) and so i was a little cautious. It turned out to be some sort of squidgy stuff with a couple of chunks of beef in it. I cant remember its name. It had a very unusual taste. I wouldnt recommend it every day and i'm not convinced that the only reason they only serve it on fiestas is because it takes so long to prepare but it was pleasant enough. At least the first one was, but when Karla asked me to eat hers as well (she is on a diet but it may be almost a convenient excuse) i sniffed a little bit of trouble. I struggled with the second helping and probably looked like i wasnt much njoying it which isnt a good thing. i hope i didnt appear rude. i couldnt understand what anyone was saying either.

after dinner nothing much happened for a while and i wasnt sure what the plan was. Everyone was still sitting around eating as we had got ours before most people. I thought that was going to be it but then i heard about and heard the procession appraoaching form down the road. It moves through the village going from house to house, ours being just one of many although there must have been at least a hundred and fifty or two hundred people in ours. In the vanguard of the procession were a couple of crazy fellows with large numbers of explosively volatile fireworks strapped to their shoulders on some kind of metal frame. Many people were hit by tiny fragments as the fireworks blasted themselves to bits. I guess this is done to rid the area of any evil spirits that might be lingering in the village. It certainly sobered me up, well it surely would have done if i'd have drunk anything. If the suicide bomber trainees hadnt done the job on the spirits, the next phase of the operation did: setting off large numbers of very loud bangers in the middle of the streets. People were peppered with more shrapnel through out the bombardment and many people covered their ears. Amazingly a baby in the arms of its mother slept peacefully through the blazing cacophony. Perhaps the baby was deaf.

After this the procession came through into our house. bno padre was in sight tho apparently thats quite normal for such occassions. Through a haze of insense smoke the saint, held high by some no doubt important local figure, was carried through the throng into the shrine. And presumably out the other side and onto the next house, i am not sure. We left on the back of a pickup shortly after and headed back to antigua, arrving at our door at around 10:30. It was time for bed already, and another glorious day slipped away.

There is more to write on a whole host of topics, but whether i will get round to it is debateable and the subject matter is of a questionable nature.

Luvvlybubby: Well, it was ten hours over only three nights to be fair. Thats still a couple on maggers, though i wouldnt want to make a habit of it. Glad granny is back on track. Ah the newbury show. Is it really that time of year again? It'll be christmas soon! Troubled waters safely navigated; i inflated busty bev and she saw me thru. Evil Uncle: Thou art indeed very evil and in league with El Diablo. That said, an intersting point. Esplendido. TulsaHilton: Nevermind ten or twenty years. Sometimes all it takes is ten or twenty seconds to wonder how and why. Not always esplendido. Papa Smirf: What the bejiggerdy wotsasnuff are you talking about. Stop wearing those socks with those sandals, its not doing you any good at all.

Posted 11:50 AM by Gobbler
Like a blog over troubled waters

a very quick blog coming up as lunch is nigh.

Tonight i-m heading off to a fiesta at our house-keeper anne-marie 's village. much more to blog. maybe this afternoon.

talk backs smalk backs , punks ahoy, and of course howe could i have been so careless its dominika. Esplendido. I joyfully discovered the other day that this is the spanish for splendid. Esplendido.

Posted 6:03 PM by Gobbler
Veni Vidi Blogi

sorry to have been so quiet of late. the longest break from the blogsince i left on this little soiree. Imean ot say, fancy not going to the blog for five days! something may not be quite right medically.

its hard to keep on blogging everyday as i'm so busy at the mo. last week was particularly hectic with many social engagements sucking away the time. and i only got ten hours sleep from tuesday to friday, and didnt much feel capable of amusing blog tales. But suffice to say last weeks was highly entertaining, salsa'd it on a couple of occassions.

have just returned from my latest weekend escapade to lake atitlan and the market at chichicastenanga at which i bought a few things such as a couple of lovely wooden masks which i cant possibly carry around for the next 4 months som will have to give them away while travelling. ah well they are rather nice and ridiculously cheap.

This morning while breakfasting in panajachel, a small town n lake atitlan. some tiny dirty kid wielding a shoeshine kit tried to persuade us that he could work wonders on our sandals and my dodgy unshinable fake adidas trainers that mike bought in peru last year. we told himin broken spanish - and of course much more politely - to sod off. Sensing that all was lost - again - he then asked for a pepsi. He was quite shocked when i said that i would and was rather pleased when one appeared in front of him. he slipped off to another table to drink it, came back a couple of minutes later with the empty bottle, said thanks and went. I reckon i can spare the odd thirty pence.

Yesterday, after spening friday night in panajachel, we payed an extortionate price for a boat to one of the villages on the lake, only accessible by boat (or a distinctly unpopular and unappetizing hike) to Santa Cruz. Went into the village to check out the clapped out 16th century church por la cultura especial, then went for a bit of a hike in the direction of a waterfall the guide book recommended that we were told by a yank who has retired there has no water in it, and got a bit lost in the maze of paths through sporadic maize plantations and amazingly out of the way beautiful houses that popped up every now and again. at one point we wondered through someones front garden a while. while we thought it strange that there should be a mowed lawn in the middle of nowhere, the growing vegetable adn indeed the house that shortly appeared gave it away. Eventually we lumbered up asteep hill taking us out of the dense valley. we didnt get very far, and as we huffed and puffed and sweated, a family of farmers, four kids and a woman, came the other way, each with a heavy load of wood strapped to the their backs. Its not the sort of thing that i was doing when i was six, and no doubt it is character forming, but i dont envy them that aspect of their lives.

Hell and buggery i´ve run out of time again. meeting some chums for dinner. hasta luega.