Day 1ish: Exploring!

After about 7 hours of traveling me and my friend Melissa finally arrived in Guatemala around 12:30pm CST and arrived at our homestay in Antigua at 1:30pm CST. Our homestay mother is Olga and she is the sweetest woman, but speaks absolutely no English! While I can speak a little Spanish, it is safe to say that I sounded like a complete silly goose! Buuuut, I'm taking the opportunity to improve. Melissa and I are staying with 2 other people from Long Island who are also doing the program. After settling in we took the opportunity to go explore the surrounding area. Apparently Antigua is 75% tourism so there are a lot of people out and about.The area is beautiful because the streets are cobblestone, the houses are all gorgeous pastel colors, and there are tropical flowers everywhere! Whats really astounding are the over 30 cathedrals, which are all intricately carved and designed. Walking around Antigua reminds me a little of India, but the area is definitely more developed and cleaner. The people here are unbelievably friendly and have a lot of patience when it comes to annoying tourists who cant speak Spanish! We went to the park today and there were so many beautiful fountains and flowers and people were just having a good time. There are also SO many street  vendors who are super sneaky and try to get you to impulse purchase things from them. To be honest, if I had any of the currency, the Quaetzal, I totally would have been suckered in! Here are some pictures I took today!