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Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 10: Niente speciale (nothing special)

June 23, 2015/0 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Tonight’s blog post will be short because nothing too unusual happened today. In the morning, I stumbled my way through Italian class. (We’re learning passive voice verbs. Ugh!)

After class, I stopped in Chiesa Nuova for some quiet prayer time. I expected to be closed for the “riposo” (siesta), but it wasn’t. While I was there, I lit a candle and said some prayers for my aunt who passed away a couple days ago. I’m sorry I can’t be home for the funeral, but my mom and I agreed that praying for her in Rome is a pretty good substitute for actually being there.

Candle lit for my aunt in front of a painting of the Assumption of Mary at Chiesa Nuova. I think she’d like this painting. 🙂

Then I ate a quick lunch outside the church.

Afterward, I found the gelato spot that Katie and I had failed to find the night before. Turns out we had been only a few doors down from it when we gave up and turned around.

Then I went back to the apartment where I tried to ask Marcella about how to catch the bus to Siena on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was really having trouble understanding what she was saying. I got only a few words and then had to put those words together with the info I could find online.

After working on homework, I returned to school to meet Katie after her class. We went out to a bar with three of her classmates for some pre-dinner drinks. It was a very American sort of bar.

Then we went to the Tuesday night dinner organized by the school. We had a full meal with bruschetta, a main course (I had pizza with tuna), and then dessert. I was so full afterward I thought my stomach would burst. Thankfully, the restaurant was close to our apartments, so Katie and her roommate headed back to their apartment, and I returned to mine.

Pizza con tonno (pizza with tuna)! Who would’ve guessed this exists? Not me! But I like it!

That’s it. Simple day, right? But that’s okay because it’s still a day in Rome!

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 7: Cucinare (To Cook)

June 20, 2015/4 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Today I got to do something I’ve been waiting a year to do. Those of you who have been following me for a while may remember that during last year’s trip to Rome, I took a cooking class. However, it was not the cooking class I had originally wanted to take. I had been hoping to get into Chef Andrea’s Cooking Classes in Rome, but it was already booked for that one free Saturday that I had during my trip.

So this year when Katie and I started planning our trip back in February, I immediately said, “Let’s try to get into that cooking class in Rome that I couldn’t get into last year.” Well, it’s a good thing we booked it right away because Chef Andea’s classes book up at least three months in advance.

Chef Andrea’s school is located in the fashionable and family-friendly neighborhood of Trastevere, which (as its name implies in Italian) is just across the Tiber River from the center of Rome. Katie and I arrived a bit too early, so we stopped in a nearby bar for some coffee (cappuccino for me, caffe latte for her). Like proper Italians, we drank ours standing up at the bar. (Only 1 Euro! I love it!)

A different type of glass for each type of wine, plus a glass of water for good measure

When we walked into Chef Andrea’s school, four other students were already there, and the table was already set. Katie and I had opted for the additional wine pairings with each course, so there were four different wine glasses set up at our places. Chef Andrea came out of the kitchen to greet us and offered us coffee, some little pieces of toast with three different jams, and some really yummy pastries for breakfast.

Once everyone had arrived (a few people were a teensy bit late because they got lost even though their hotel was around the corner–just take that as a warning that it’s easy to pass by the small entrance to the school), Chef Andrea explained the menu for the day and then led us back to the kitchen.

The appetizers we made were Fiori di Zucca. These are zucchini flowers that we had to take the stamen out of. Then we stuffed them with things like prosciutto and mozzarella. They were later fried in a beer batter.

We even made a really yummy red pesto sauce for dipping the zucchini flowers. Super yummy! Seriously, I don’t have the words to describe how good this was. Even though the zucchini flowers were fried, they weren’t greasy or heavy, and the sauce was just heavenly.

Our first course was cavatelli pasta in a fresh tomato sauce. Katie and I helped to peel a lot of tomatoes for this sauce, but it was worth the messy hands covered in tomato guts. 🙂 We also had a lot of fun using our thumbs and these cool wooden paddles to roll the pasta into the cavatelli shape.

For our second course, we had Roman style chicken with peppers and roasted potatoes. Simple but very yummy. (Here’s the thing I’ve learned from the Italian cooking classes I’ve taken. They don’t load their food with tons of different ingredients and spices. Simple recipes with good, fresh ingredients make all the difference.)

Roman style chicken with peppers and roasted potato

Then for dessert we made tiramisu. Some of you know I’ve made this before using a recipe from a cookbook I bought in Rome last year. Good to do Chef Andrea’s recipe was the same. Hint: if you’re making your tiramisu with liquor, you’re making it wrong. Or at least, you must be planning on not finishing it soon, so you’re using the liquor as a preservative.

We each got a personalized dessert plate.

There were a total of twelve students in the class, and everyone was really nice. Chef Andrea is a lot of fun, and he takes his time to explain why the Italians cook the way they do. You’ll learn a lot and have a great time in his class.

The class started at 10:00 and went until at least 3:00, after which Katie and visited a few of the beautiful churches in the Trastevere neighborhood (Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Cecilia, and San Francesco a Ripa). Unfortunately, a wedding was just about to start at Santa Cecilia, so Katie and I will have to head back there some day.

Chef Andrea and me

If you find yourself in Rome and you enjoy cooking, try Chef Andrea’s Cooking Classes in Rome. You’ll have fun, learn something new, meet nice people, and eat some truly amazing food. Seriously. I wish I were better at describing food with words or that I could send some of it to all of you. Sorry. You’ll just have to come here yourselves.

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 5: Non funziona (It doesn’t work)

June 18, 2015/0 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Last night I couldn’t finish my blog post because the wifi in my apartment seemed to cut out. After a frustrating hour or so, I went to bed around midnight. Four hours later I wa awakened by a weird nightmare involving Harry Potter and zombies (I blame it on that Harry Potter Lego statue I saw the other night and posted on Facebook and Instagram).

To make it even worse, the wind blew the French doors off my balcony open, and I awoke from my nightmare convinced someone had entered my room. However, that would have been impossible. The doorway to my balcony has these heavy wooden-slat type of blinds that come down at night. They only be lifted from the inside, and there is only enough room between the slats to let a little air in. Also, I’m up on the seventh floor. No way is someone getting onto my balcony, much less through the wooden slats.

Nonetheless, by the time I’d come to this rational thought, I was completely awake and couldn’t fall back asleep until it was nearly time to wake up again.

When my alarm went off, I begrudgingly awakened. I got even crankier when I realized the wifi still wasn’t working. I decided to leave for school a little early to see if I could get my blog to post via the wifi there. However, the wifi wasn’t working in my classroom either.

During break, I took my iPad to the hallway. Up and down I walked trying to get a wifi signal. Finally, I found a weak signal in the stairwell. However, it was going too slowly and didn’t finish before the break ended.

After class, I tried again, but I was still having difficulty. The signal seemed to have disappeared from the stairwell. Finally, I got reconnected and posted the blog, but by this time, I was incredibly tired (given the five or so hours I’d had of sleep) and really hungry.

After grabbing a quick lunch, I returned home to drop off my school stuff and ran off to meet Katie. We had tickets for the Scavi tour at St. Peter’s. Only a small number of people can take this tour each day, and you have to request your tickets in advance. The tour takes you two levels below St. Peter’s to the necropolis (city of the dead, or cemetery) that was on the original Vatican hill. This is where St. Peter was buried. Constantine wanted to build a monument for St. Peter, so he had the old cemetery hill covered with dirt so that the land would be leveled off for the monument. Then a church was built around the monument. Twelve hundred years later, a pope decided it was time for a new church, and it was built on top of the old one. This is the current St. Peter’s that we know today. The old church underneath it is where many of the old popes are now buried.

The tour took us through the excavated part of the old necropolis (think family mausoleum after family mausoleum) right up to where they believe St. Peter was buried. Then we went up a level to where the monument to him was built. On the wall there are prayers people wrote. There is also writing that says something like “Peter is here.”

Finally, we were free to walk around the “old church” level where the popes are now buried and then up to the current-day basilica. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures during the Scavi tour, but I got this nice shot of St. Peter’s before we left.

Homework and dinner in the our neighborhood tonight. Here’s hoping the wifi works tomorrow, or you may not see a blog post from me again for a bit. I’m typing this one in Katie’s apartment. 🙂

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 4: Nulla Pazza (Nothing crazy)

June 18, 2015/2 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Last year, I was blessed to see Pope Francis give the General Audience while on I was on pilgrimage (btw, check out The Catholic Traveler for great Catholic pilgrimages). After Katie and I got our tickets for the General Audience, we started making plans for where and when to meet. Last year, my pilgrimage leader had us lining up at 7:00 a.m., and without giving away any of his secret methods, let’s just say we ended up with perfect seats that may have involved me nearly tripping over a woman and her children, as well as nearly accidentally body-slamming a Swiss Guard. Okay, I exaggerate. A little.

After describing to Katie how we got such great seats, we came to the decision that we wouldn’t do anything crazy to get seats. We were okay with meeting at 8:00 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m., and if we didn’t get seats in the front row of the second section, that was okay, too. We’d be happy with any sort of perimeter seat where we’d get a nice drive-by from Pope Francis.

So at 8:00 a.m, I met Katie and her roommate at a piazza near St. Peter’s, and then we walked the rest of the way to the square together. There seemed to be a long line ahead of us. We shrugged it off. Oh well.

Then Katie’s roommate said, “I think we’re actually in the wrong line. I see people going on up ahead. I’ll go check it out.” To make a long story short, we think we were actually standing in line for the group of people who get seats up on the stage with Pope Francis. Oops.

So we left that line and soon found ourselves at the security checkpoint. A quick scan of our bags (was anyone even looking?), and we were in the square. They hadn’t even opened the second section of seats yet, and the first section only had people sitting around the perimeter. The center was all empty. Hmm. I guess the square doesn’t fill up as much when there isn’t a huge canonization happening the next Sunday.

So we waited near the front of the second section after the guards told us they wouldn’t open it until the first section filled. Slowly, more people filled in the first section, but more people also milled around the second section like we did. The three of us wondered where exactly they would open up the barricades for us to enter.

Suddenly, we heard shouts from behind us. The guards had opened the second section from the back, directly opposite us, and a crowd of German high school students were running directly for the seats that were just on the other side of the barricade from us–a mere two feet from us. There was no way we could run all the way around the barricade and get any sort of decent seats. They would all be taken by then.

“Throw your bags over the barricade and onto those seats!” I yelled to my companions.

Then the British girl and I lifted the white sheet that hangs in front of the wooden barricade.

“I’ll try to climb through,” said the British girl. The barricade has wooden beams crossed like an X. She tried to crawl through the lowest opening in the X because it was hard to lift the white sheet very high. She got halfway through and said, “I can’t make it!”

Peering over the barricade, I spotted the Germans. They were halfway to our seats by now.

Ducking down, I lifted the white sheet higher. “I’m going for one of these side pockets,” I announced. I thrust my head through the “hole” at the right side of the X. I figured if I got half my body through, the other half could follow.

Did I mention I was wearing a denim pencil skirt while doing this?

“Are you kidding me?” cried Katie. “You’re actually going to fit through there!?!”

With my head and right arm through, I grabbed hold of the plastic gray chair I’d thrown my purse on.

“Yep!” I cried to Katie, and with nothing but sheer determination, I wiggled my body through the opening. The British girl followed my example.

“I can’t believe you two just did that! I mean, I’m glad you did, but I’m going to walk around now.”

The British girl and I sat across the three chairs we’d thrown our purses on and waited for Katie.

What was that about not doing anything crazy to get those front row, second section seats?

There had been threats of rain on all the weather maps, but the morning ended up so sunny, we put on sunscreen used my umbrella for shade. The pope talked about how death affects families (you can find his talk online, I’m sure), and we got a really nice, slow drive-by from Pope Francis. Check out my Facebook page for the video.

The afternoon was spent mostly working on homework. Then in the evening, I took the school’s guided tour of Isola Tiberina, which is a tiny island located in the middle of the Tiber River. For those of you who read the Speak, Pray, Cook blog posts last year, you may remember this as the island where I had my cooking class.

After the tour, I went out to dinner with ten other students, a fun collection of people from the U.S., Turkey, Russia, and Bulgaria!

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 3: Non posso parlare

June 16, 2015/7 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Today I lost the ability to speak Italian. Well, only briefly.

I did okay in class today. We had a student teacher visiting our room, and our teacher asked us (in Italian, of course), “Who is she?” A couple people made some guesses like “Un’amica?” (A friend?). However, since I’m a teacher myself, I know what it looks like when a student teacher visits a room, so I said, “Un’insegnante futuro?” (A future teacher?). However, I really should have used “futura” because it was a female student teacher. Oops. My Italian grammar is pretty bad when I’m speaking off the top of my head.

Despite that mistake, I felt like I did okay in class. We were working on verbs in different tenses, which is very hard for me in Italian (easy in English), but I think I finally figured out the difference between passato prossimo (which is like present perfect tense in English) and imperfetto (which is like simple past tense). At least, I hope I got that right.

My inability to speak Italian came after class today. I made arrangements to meet Katie in St. Peter’s Square so we could pick up tickets for tomorrow’s General Audience (when the Pope gives his weekly address to the public on whatever he’d like to talk about). The tickets are free and can be picked up via the Swiss Guards near St. Peter’s. I had done a little research on where to get them, but one website had given me bad intel, so we had to ask for help. Some nice police officers pointed us in the right direction.

Finally, Katie and I found a couple Swiss Guards on the south side of St. Peter’s. One was helping a family; the other was available. As we approached the available one, Katie said, “Scusa,” and I picked up with the Italian line I had been practicing in my head for the last five minutes: “Dove possiamo trovare i biglietti per l’udienza generale?” (Where can we find tickets for the General Audience?)

The problem was that the Swiss Guard was what my mother would call a “very nice looking young man.” So as I started to say my prepared sentence, I began to fumble over the words. “Dove . . .uh . . . possiamo trovare . . . uh . . . i biglietti . . per . . . ”

And the “molto carino” (very nice looking) Swiss Guard started to smile at my faltering Italian, which only made it worse, of course.

“Per . . .l’ude . . . l’u. . . l’uda.” I gave up with a sigh. “The General Audience?”

The Swiss Guard smiled some more and pulled some papers out of his pocket. At which point, Katie exclaimed in English, “Wait! You have them in your pocket!?!”

“Quanti?” he asked. How many?

“Quattro,” Katie and I both responded in Italian. Her two roommates may come with us tomorrow.

He handed over four blue tickets, and we thanked him in Italian. Well, I may have been rendered a bit speechless by a Swiss Guard, but at least he didn’t start speaking English with us.

After shopping at the “Catholic Costco” and a quick bite to eat at a pizza-by-the-slice (pizza al taglio) place, Katie and I parted ways. She headed off to class, and I returned to my apartment. I had told my teacher that I would be missing class, and she told me what pages to look at in the workbook, so I wanted to start on them.

After a couple hours of working on Italian, I headed out to Santa Maria dell’Anime, the German language church that I had visited last year. It was one of my epiphany moments last year, so you can read a bit more about it in last year’s blog post. I got a little more prayer time in this year.

Then I met Katie and one of her roommates at school after their afternoon classes. We headed over to Santa Maria sopra Minvera, the church where St. Catherine of Siena is buried. (Or at least, where her body is entombed. We’ll see her head when we’re in Siena. Not creepy at all, right?)

Then we headed back to school where you can meet up with a teacher and other students for an optional dinner outing. They walk us to a local restaurant where they have worked out a special price for us. It’s not a bad deal. Sixteen Euros for wine, water, an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. We had five different types of bruschetta, a choice of main courses (I had spaghetti alla carbonara), and then a choice of four different desserts (I had profiteroles, which are pastries with gelato inside, kind of like an eclair, and often with whipped cream and chocolate sauce on top).

Yum!

Off to bed kind of early tonight for the big General Audience at St. Peter’s tomorrow!

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 2: Il primo giorno di scuola

June 15, 2015/2 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Today was the first day of school. I met Katie and her two British roommates at a corner on the way to school. It was fun to walk the old path to school and say, “Buongiorno, San Pietro!” while crossing Via della Conciliazione. Again, I was amazed that I’ve returned successfully. Even as I sit typing this at the desk in my room, I find it hard to believe I’m really here again. In some ways, it seems like just yesterday that I sat here typing out my blog posts. At other times, it feels like I’m in a dream as I sit here. Perhaps it’s the jetlag!

At school, there was a long line of students waiting to check in. The two Brits and I took the test to see where we would be placed. It seemed to be the same written exam as last year. Then there was a brief oral exam, which was basically just to hear us talk and see how well we understood spoken Italian. Listening in a foreign language has always been very difficult for me. Half the time, I catch just enough words to guess at what the person is saying, and then I just hope I didn’t miss an important word that would completely change the meaning.

After our exams, we had over an hour to kill before our results, so I went with Katie and the Brits because they had to pay for their apartment. The guy who runs their housing accomodations recommended a place where we could get good fruit smoothies. They were indeed good, but I got my red smoothie onto my white shirt! Katie and I thoroughly impressed our new British friends with our Tide-to-go sticks and our Shout wipes, which almost completely removed the red spots from my white shirt. Apparently, they have no such things in England. This is why I love coming here! You meet people from all over and learn something new!

When we returned to get our class assignments, I was put in a morning class. Basically, I’m right where I had left off last summer, which is fine with me. I’m just glad I didn’t regress! Katie and her roommates all have afternoon classes, so after my class, I did a little grocery shopping (sandwich for lunch, yogurt and fruit for breakfast tomorrow) and headed back to the apartment to read and rest for a bit.

A piazza near school

Then at 3:30 I headed out to meet up with a Roman woman I met while in Guatemala on my spring break trip! We had exchanged info at the end of our trip. We spoke Italian together, or at least I tried as best I could. Her Italian (like all the other natives) is pretty fast for me. We stopped for a drink where I ordered Chinotto (an Italian cola), and another Roman friend of hers came to chat with us. After an hour or so, I had to leave to meet up with Katie.

Back at the school, we attended an orientation meeting and then went out to dinner at Polese, a restaurant I’d eaten at during last year’s pilgrimage as well as my solo trip last summer. Seriously, the best bruschetta ever.

After dinner we had gelato (gelati, veramente) and sat in the piazza watching the children play. The weather during the day was cloudy and humid with a bit of rain, but the evening was absolutely beautiful with clear skies and a light breeze. A truly gorgeous night in Rome.

One of Katie’s roommates said, “I’m already getting sad about the idea of leaving here.” And she gets to stay a whole month!

I replied, “You see why I came back here.”

“I’m surprised you ever left,” she said.

Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t worry. I’m still not moving to Rome, but I sure do like it here!

Mi Piace, Mi Gusta – Day 1: Sona a Casa

June 14, 2015/4 Comments/in Travel, Uncategorized/by AJ Cattapan

Welcome to “Mi Piace, Mi Gusta”! (Mi Piace is Italian for “I like” and Mi Gusta is the same in Spanish.)

Well, this trip started out with a whimper. On the way to the airport, I got a call from my friend Katie, who was already there. Our flights (ORD to PHL, PHL to FCO/Rome) were both cancelled. They had been fine an hour earlier when I’d checked online at home.

Some polite begging at the desk got us transferred to another airline with a direct flight to Rome. The only problem is that we were seven hours early for that flight. Oh well, we’ll eat a meal (or two) at the airport. Our new flight was scheduled to leave at 6:20, but we soon found out it was delayed and wouldn’t leave until after 10:00.

The funniest thing that happened at the airport occurred as we were going through security. Katie had wanted to bring some peanut butter for her lunches. They don’t have peanut butter in Italy (a fact that truly worries peanut butter lovers like Katie, me, and Cardinal Dolan). When Katie ran out of room in her luggage, she stuck it in her carry-on. Yeah, guess what counts as a “liquid”? Peanut butter! Out went the brand-new, still-sealed jar at the security point! Katie invited the security guard to eat it himself, but he said he couldn’t.

After nearly 12 hours at the airport, we left on our direct flight. Apparently, there had been a fire at the international terminal in Rome back in May, but they are still recovering. When we landed at four this afternoon, the employees at Terminal 3 at Fiumicino were all wearing gas masks.

Using my landlady’s advice from last year, we took a coach bus into the city. From there, we walked several blocks to Katie’s apartment, which she is sharing with two Brits. Only one of whom was at the apartment already. We chatted with her for a bit (she seems lovely), and then headed over to my apartment, which is 7-8 blocks away.

My landlady was very happy to see me again. Like real Italians, we kissed each other on the cheek. She even insisted on the same with Katie. Then she made us coffee, and we chatted as best we could. Katie speaks Spanish, and apparently so does my landlady, so we had an interesting tri-lingual conversation. Mostly Italian with some Spanish from Katie, and a little English between me and Katie.

My landlady had some funny stories to tell us about a previous tenant who didn’t seem to ever use to shower, and kept mistakenly using the bidet as a toilet even though she was left messages in Italian, English, and her native language not to do so. Ha!

Katie and I enjoyed a nice pasta dinner, ate some gelato at one of my favorite gelato places (Old Bridge), and then sat for a bit in front of St. Peter’s. Tomorrow we head off to class. I will have to take a test to see what class they put me in. Katie will go in the beginner’s class.

Sono a casa. I am home.

The thought that keeps running through my mind is that I can’t believe I am really here. Last year, on my last night in Rome, I spent a long time in front of St. Peter’s praying that I would one day come back. Who knew that it would be so soon! Grazie a Dio! Thanks be to God I am back!

A domani!

Help me name my next travel blogging adventure!

May 28, 2015/6 Comments/in Spin Cycle, Travel, Writing/by AJ Cattapan

As I write this, there are only eight days of school left. Normally, I teach summer school, but for the first time in my teaching career, I’m going to take the summer off!

And you know what that means . . . it’s time to travel! Last year, I fit in a two-week trip to study Italian in Rome after the summer school session ended. I blogged every day I was there and dubbed my trip the Speak, Pray, Cook tour. This year, because I have more time off, I’ve expanded the trip, but what should I call it? “Speak, Pray, Cook Part 2” seems sort of dull.

So here’s what I’ve got planned so you can help me come up with a name:

two weeks in Rome studying at the same Italian immersion school I studied at last year
a Saturday cooking class (a different cooking school than the one I went to last year)
finally doing the Scavi tour at St. Peter’s where you get to do down into the excavation site where they found St. Peter’s actual tomb! (Only a few people are allowed to do this each day, and my friend and I have tickets!!!)
hopefully a trip out to some catacombs (I’ve been to Rome three times but never seen any catacombs.)
a one-night trip to Siena (As a writer, I’ve got to visit the hometown of St. Catherine of Siena–now that woman could write! Her writing persuaded a pope and all sorts of influential leaders.)
one week in Florence studying at one of the satellite locations for the Italian immersion school
and then because I’m traveling with a friend who speaks Spanish . . . four days in Spagna . . . uh, Spain! (Sorry, getting a head start on my Italian there.)

So what should I call this grand adventure????

I’m coming Rome! Save some sunshine, gelato, and cappuccino for me!

I’d really like my Italian to progress to a point where I can listen to some Italian and not feel like I’m really straining just to catch a word or two here and there. I also want to have some fun before buckling in for the doctorate program in the fall.

Got some summer plans you want to share? Hook up with the Spin Cycle this week and share your blog post! Click on the button below to link up.

Leave your suggestions for a trip name in the comments below and maybe I’ll pick you up a little something in Italy or Spain. 🙂

And no, sorry, I can’t bring you back a man.

Gotta Guatemala Days 9 and 10

March 30, 2015/1 Comment/in Lent, Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Day 9 started with an hour and a half boat tour around Lake Atitlan. We left from the dock at our hotel. As I’ve said before, Lake Atilan is reminiscent of Lake Como in Italy. The beautiful blue lake is surrounded by green mountains and three volcanoes. Some people (clearly relatively wealthy) have built some beautiful homes along the lakefront. Due to the steep mountain slopes, some of these homes are only accessible via boat. No traversable road could be built through, around, and/or down the mountain to reach them.

An expensive home along the lake

Some of the more typical Guatemalan homes on Lake Atitlan

One interesting story our tour guide told us during this boat ride is that the author of the French book The Little Prince once stayed at Lake Atitlan. If you’ve read The Little Prince, you might remember that the boy kept showing people a drawing that everyone claimed was a drawing of a hat. However, someone finally told him it wasn’t a hat. It was a snake that swallowed an elephant. That shape was inspired by a hill that the author saw while visiting Lake Atitlan.

Do you see the snake that swallowed the elephant?

During our boat ride, I tried to find the cables for the zip lines, but we were unable to spot them.

I ziplined somewhere along this mountainside.

After the boat ride, we got in the bus for the three-hour ride back to Guatemala City, stopping once for a lunch break. When we arrived at our hotel, we found several workers making one of those colored sawdust “carpets” for Holy Week.

A gorgeous Holy Week “carpet” in our hotel

We had time at our hotel to rest for a while before the farewell dinner. I have to say that we had a really nice tour group. You never really know what you’re going to get when you sign up for a group tour. However, I think one of the benefits of going to a place like Guatemala is that you don’t get newbie travelers. Everyone in this group was a seasoned world traveler. We were never waiting on the bus for someone who was late. In fact, we were almost always at least five minutes early. Nobody complained. Nobody snubbed their noses at witnessing a different way of living. Everyone was appreciative of the lovely scenery and the good people we got to meet.

Day 10 was just a long travel day home with nothing too exciting to report, so I’ll just share with you a few final thoughts on my travels and what I learned on this trip.

1. Caravan is an excellent tour company. We were very well taken care of. Basically, we paid about $120 a day, and that covered hotel, transportation, museum entrances, tips for bellboys, a very knowledgeable tour guide, musical performances, and three yummy meals a day. And the hotels were top-rate (they are listed at running from $150-250 a night!).

2. Travel reminds me that experience really is the best teacher.

3. God created something large and beautiful and awe-inspiring when He made the world. I’m so blessed to have seen the few parts I’ve been to. I am even more blessed to have met the people from those places.

4. We may come from different lands with different climates, cultures, and languages, but we’re really not as different as you might think. Most of us believe we were created by a higher power. Most of us want to please that higher power. And we all just want to feed our families and enjoy good times with the ones we love.

And finally . . .

5. If you enjoy a springlike climate and want an exotic-type vacation that will make you feel a little like Indiana Jones, well then . . . you “Gotta Gautemala”!

Gotta Guatemala Days 5-6

March 25, 2015/3 Comments/in Travel/by AJ Cattapan

Day 5:

This was mostly a traveling day. We had to head all the way from Tikal in the north back south past Guatemala City to Antigua. This city used to be the old capital until it was ruined by earthquakes one too many times back in 1773, and they decided to just move the capital somewhere else. That somewhere else, of course, being Guatemala City.

Since we were basically driving on the same path we took two days ago, we didn’t have any sight seeing stops this time. We just drove all day with one lunch break and three quick bathroom breaks.

Mango tree near our lunch stop

Even without any side trips, we didn’t get to Antigua until 5:23.

Our hotel is very, very nice. It’s a spa actually. We were greeted at the door with some kind of fruity drink in a champagne glass. My traveling friend said the drink reminded her of a Bellini without the alcohol.

Towel swan that greeted us at our hotel

The two of us did a quick walk around the neighboring blocks for a half hour. We saw a lot of kids in school uniforms, so we wondered if a local Catholic high school had just gotten out. Maybe they have a long school day here.

Back at the hotel, we had a lovely dinner with lots of yummy dessert choices.

Thank goodness the desserts are small so we can try them all!

Day 6:

Oh my gosh! What a lovely day in Antigua today. The weather was perfect, in the 70s and mostly sunny. We started at 9:00 a.m. with a three-hour walking tour of the city led by our very own Veronica, who continues to be filled with valuable knowledge and entertaining stories. For example, did you know that they built corner windows in their houses here in Antigua during the Spanish colonial times because the higher class women were not supposed to move around outside their homes by themselves. They spent most of their days indoors doing embroidery or staring out the windows–hence, the corner windows to give them more to look at!

Also, the carpenters that they had were used to building ships instead of houses, so when they had to make a roof they basically built a ship’s hull and then turned it upside down.

Notice that the roof looks like an upside-down ship’s hull.

On our walk, we visited the main cathedral near the town square. It is much smaller than it used to be because most of it was ruined during earthquakes.

The cathedral

Inside the cathedral

Holy Week is a big deal down here, and preparations have already begun, including this beautiful “carpet” made of colored sand.*

Can you believe this is colored sand?

Our group stopped near the Central Park, but Veronica instructed my friend and I to make a little detour.

Central Park

The night before she had told us about a chocolate museum (you know the cacao bean is big here) where we could take a class. Since I had told her we were interested, she instructed us to go right away and make our reservation for the class and then meet up with everyone else at the next stop on the walking tour. The chocolate museum (named Choco Museo) was only a couple blocks away. Unfortunately, it didn’t open until 10:00, and it was 9:57. So we waited. And waited. Finally, at 10:10 it opend. We quickly made our reservation for a 1:30 class and headed toward the “Las Capuchinas,” the convent for the Capuchin nuns. It was damaged in an earthquake in 1773, but has become basically a museum now.

Standing in the circular set of dormitories in the convent

Courtyard in the Capuchin Convent

After our walking tour, we had a nice (but somewhat salty) lunch with an onion and leek soup and then our choice of entrees. I had the tilapia, but there were also steak, chicken, and vegetarian options.

Lunch ended just in time for our chocolate class, which was awesome. Our instructor took us through the whole process from the cacao pod to the beans fermenting to drying the beans to roasting the beans to the separation of the shell from the bean to the crushing and pulverizing of the bean. We actually got to roast the beans and shell them. The shells are used to make cacao tea, which we got to drink. Then we grounded some of the beans to make two other drinks, the traditional Mayan drink (with chili, paprika, and honey) and then the Spanish version (with cardomon, anise, sugar, milk, and black pepper). It tasted a lot like a chocolate chai tea.

Time to grind the cacao beans!

Then we finally got to the business of making chocolate candy! We had our choice of dark or milk chocolate. I chose milk, and my friend chose dark. We picked out molds, filled them with the chocolate, and then added things like sprinkles, coconut, macadamia nuts, orange peel, mango, ginger, almonds, and Oreo bits.

Filling my mold with chocolate!

The chocolate needed one and a half hours to set, so we headed out to a jewelry store to do some shopping for jade.

Then we headed to the church of mercy (Iglesias de Nuestra Señora de la Mercidad). This is a very pretty church with intricate white scrollwork outside which makes it look a little like a wedding cake. We took a few minutes for prayer inside.