on my half hour break from the 5 hr daily lessons. cam and i moved into the previous posted house (¨the kingdom¨ as it´s known between us) two days ago. so much nicer having our own place, and it´s costing us about 8 dollars a day (2 less than hostel and host family). we´ve been really busy with classes, socializing, and organizing living arrangements but now that everything is sorted i expect our vidas antigueñas to be màs tranquilo.

saturday july 5 is my 22nd birthday, so we´re arranging to have people over to the kingdom for a small party on friday before heading out to a bar. saturday will be scooby doo (the same thing, no this is not spanish). today we´re climbing an active volcano close to antigua called pacaya with about 20 other students at our school (appe). yesterday we did a tour of a macadamia farm (finca), supposedly the farm that inspired the use of macademia nut oil in cosmetics such as anti aging cream. our tour guide was ex american fireman with a brilliant sense of humour. for example, after everyone applauded him at the end of the tour, he said ´oh great and now you gave me the clap.´

so we´ll just be in antigua this wknd. last weekend we went to san pedro la laguna (on lake atitlan), a fairly safe and pleasant hippy hangout, where some restaurants feel they must explicitly state that no drugs are allowed (i´ll let you draw your own conclusions on what that implies about the city). i have more to say but don´t have the time to say it! back to lessons.