At 3700 meters (about 12,000 feet) Volcan Santa Maria looks down on Xela and offers a tough hike for those willing to take it on. The volcano is inactive but has incredible views from the top. I think the pics from the hike say more than I can write ... especially since I don´t have time today because I have to pick up my laundry and do my homework. Sounds kinda pathetic actually. My second week of spanish school went pretty well and I am now able to unders...

Today I took a side trip with some friends from my spanish school to an abandoned town that used to have 10,000 residents until a devastating lava flow and then an earthquake forced the residents to say "it sucks here", and they all moved. The town is called Pelmar Viejo and it´s a quick 18 mile chicken bus ride outside of town. You need to pay attention to find this place. The directions are to get off the bus at the 3rd bridge where the sign reads Puente S...

My first week of Spanish school is behind me now and I learned one thing. I need a second week of Spanish school. So I´ll be in Xela for another week, minimum, to keep studying and practicing. Tomorrow, I´m going to move in with a different family so I can meet more people. From a reader´s perspective, the past week wasn´t all that exciting. The classes each day are from 8am to 1pm and I even get homework assignments. So at the end of the day,...

Congratulations to my sister Heather and her husband Andrew on the the birth of baby Ethan. I am an uncle for the first time!!!! I can´t wait to buy him lots of candy with red food coloring, teach him swear words, show him how to light fire crackers, and show him Playboy magazine.

Today was my first class at spanish school. If spanish is a complex NASA orbital space equation, my brain is an old Radio Shack PC from the early 80's with that stupid hourglass symbol on the screen all the time... computing, computing... still computing ... come back tomorrow and I might be done computing. It went quite well actually and was a lot of review from the spanish I remember from high school. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Over the past weekend, some...