most ppl reading this would know that on saturday july5 i turned 22 years old. we had a party friday night at the kingdom, about 15 ppl from the school showed up. we bought 3L of cheap vodka, 4L of orange juice, 3L of sprite and used a large water bottle with a tap as a dispenser. the 10L of liquid lasted under 2 hours. our kingdom looked great with the outdoor lamps on and candles spread throughout the yard. later we went to la kasbah, a club in antigua near the arches, and at midnight had my first drink of 22, a shot of tequila (courtesy of cameron).

saturday we mostly slept. at 8ish we went out for dinner at ni fu ni fa, an expensive argentine restaurant that we´d been saving for a special occasion. the dinner was incredible, probably the best i´ve had in antigua so far. our meals were 150 quetzales (approx. 20$) after tip, the most we´ve spent yet.. pricey for central america but would´ve been a bargain in canada.

lava isn´t as liquidy as i thought it was. also, it´s not as hot. you can poke it with a stick and move it around. i always thought things would just disintegrate upon contact, but evidently not. this is not to say i was disappointed with lava or the pacaya climb; in fact, it was one of the most memorable things i´ve seen.

lessons are progressing well, although i´ve definitely reached another plateau in my learning.. i have been steadily learning but still find myself incapable of understanding rapid fire chatter on tv and in person. i can speak 1 on 1 and understand the majority of what is being said to me, but in group conversations where context can quickly change i get lost. i´m going to spend more time studying vocabulary. although my vocabulary is not very small, neither is it sufficiently large.

have to decide between livingson and semuc champay for this weekend.. hm..