Today was a whirlwind. I met with Luis the realtor who is totally obsessed with Boston sports. Out of the 3 hours I spent with him, we talked about rentals for 30% of the time, personal stuff for 10%, and sports 60%. I was really happy I decided to get him a Patriot’s shirt, he was very appreciative of it. Not that he doesn’t have enough. From the key chain, to his coffee mug, and his Boston ringtones I think it’s pretty clear where his loyalties lie. My co-worker Patrick came to Guatemala and met with him. He’s a Yankees fan, God forbid. I’m surprised Luis didn’t really kick him out of his office. Luis goes to Boston to see a game every year. What a crazy guy. He was fun, and he took me to a really nice outdoor steak lunch at a high-end restaurant. It was lovely. You could tell just by the cars parked in the lot what kind of people were hanging out there. No joke for sure.
After lunch I scrambled to get phone calls done. The business center helped with some, and it was great, especially being able to sit back, relax and listen to the melodic sound of the Spanish language. But then, I attempted some of them on my own. It didn’t nearly go as well. Especially when I had to call some guy to tell him my e-mail 3 times and he still didn’t get it. No one does when I try to tell them my e-mail address. It’s a pain in the ass to try and get people to understand. I called Audi by accident, which turns out I would have needed to anyways, but the guy came to my hotel after work to drop off the quotes that I wanted. Which was kinda good, until he tried to get me to come into the dealership tomorrow so he could show me more cars, which turned into him coming back to the hotel again tomorrow for a reason I wasn’t sure of, and he kept trying to get me to explain to him what I did over and over because he didn’t get it and thought I was going to buy 10 cars from him. I was really struggling with my Spanish but I was trying really hard, but when I had to say it 10 times it was becoming more and more of a pain in the ass because damnit I had a lot of work to get done.
Finally, I had had enough of this car business and I didn’t even get very far with it. I walked to the mall, very cautiously (trying not to get mugged like you almost did, Tom) and tried to hide discretely from the pains in the asses in the store as I copied prices. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it would be. Though I didn’t get nearly as far in my work as I had wanted to. I almost attempted to walk home, but then decided not to when I saw dark streets in front of me and not many people. So, I took a cab from the mall to the hotel. All 4 blocks or so. When I went out after dinner, I looked right, and hiding in the shadows was a man dressed in army gear with a machine gun. I looked left in the dark corner where the hotel driveway met the road and there was another one, gazing at me as I walked in boredom. Creepy. Oh and then, there were 4 pickup trucks in a row, all full of men and women in uniform with machine guns out and ready. Should I feel more secure or more nervous? Eh I felt OK about it. I just thought it was pretty entertaining to see such wild security measures. It made me feel a little better about walking around the block safely. I guess there was a shooting in October at one of the restaurants a block from the hotel in which 3 people were killed. Since then security has been stepped up. After all, it is the Zona Viva, (alive Zone). If people can’t come there for fun, where can they go.
So for dinner, I ate at a typical Guatemalan restaurant. Pork and sausage, beans and rice. And a doroda draft, which wasn’t actually draft, but that’s ok. De-licious!!
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