Montezuma´s Revenge

Monday, July 24th

NOTE: Pictures to be included later.
NOTE: Pictures included now.

Well kids its that time of year, back to school! I was so excited I woke up at 4:00am because I couldn´t sleep. Either that or I was awaken by the sounds of Alexey praying to the porcelain god. Thats right both Greg and Alexey were heaving their guts out this morning. Luckily we had had two hotel rooms and thus two bathrooms or else things could have gotten uglier. Now I´m not normally one to celebrate the poor misfortune of others, but I don´t think it is coincidental that both Greg and Alexey shaved their faces yesterday before becoming ill. Amazingly the only other time we had an illness on the trip was when Greg shaved his beard for the first time in Belize. Now I´m not one to put much faith in superstition, but Jose might want to watch where he puts his razor. Montezuma may still be bitter over how the Spanish broke their pact and may be taking it out on others who break sacred pacts. I am happy to report I am as scraggily as ever.




In spite of his illness, Alexey was still able to battle through and attend the first day or classes today. We took our traditional school pictures at the door way to the hotel room before Jose walked us to class. Absent was Greg who was bedridden with the aforementioned illness. The classes were quite enjoyable and informative, albeit seven hours of language class in one day is quite a lot. I don´t know how my teacher Manuel was able to tolerate me. I think he eventually gave up and so the last two hours I just wrote out the conjugations for like 30 verbs that end in -ir. On the bright side I was able to learn some very important verbs for travelling in Central America (combatir:to combat, delinquir:to commit a crime, difunder:to diffuse, eludir: to ellude, invadir:to invade, oprimir se:to be oppressed, sufrir:to suffer, morir:to die and over three ways to say to hit). Perhaps the most important thing I already knew though. That is that I suck at learning languages. This time I am determined though, so maybe it will all work out in time for Jose´s wedding in March. I´m hoping to hit on some of his sexy cousins in Ecuador "¿cómo tu haciendo?"

Speaking of learning languages, I loved Jose´s wonderful wife Muoi´s comment about the reverse semi-colon. I think this is a great idea, although I think what she is actually looking for is an upside down semi-colon. I feel like the reverse semi-colon would have a period on top and a comma on the bottom pointing in the opposite direction. In fact I think there should be reverse punctuation for all punctuation marks. This would be beneficial for all backwards languages such as Hebrew and Arabic. More importantly though there needs to be some sort of punctuation mark to highlight sarcasm in written text. I actually invented something I called the "tadow" a few years back (see exhibit 1 below). Unfortunately it never really caught on. Some people try to use smiley faces or lmfao, but I think both of these are lame and we need some sort of punctuation. I feel this is absolutely necessary as often time sarcastic comedy is lost in written form where as it is very easy to express during talking via a simple point and smile (see exhibit 2 below). Does anyone know whom I should contact about this?


.............Exhibit 1....................................Exhibit 2.........

While Alexey and I were in class Jose wandered around Xela while Greg stayed back in the hotel room. Nothing much to report on either front as Xela isn´t that scenic of a city and all Greg really did was stink up the room. In fact the cleaning lady must have felt that it smelt so bad she left a can of air freshener in the room after she left.

After class Jose, Greg and I went out to dinner. Alexey was absent as he had already grown sick of us and has decided to partake in a full Spanish immersion process by staying with a Guatemalan family for the week. No more will be written about him until he stops being so reclusive. So anyways the three of us went to dinner at Pollo Campero again to partake in their free wi-fi, as we had some phone calls to make. Greg and I had to call American Airlines (don´t ever fly with them, United is much better) in order to, sadly, book our return trips back to the US of A. While there I decided to order the pollo nugget value meal. After leaving Pollo Campero we walked by a McDonald´s and noticed they had free internet. So I decided to take the chicken nugget taste test. I am happy to report that McDonald´s reigns supreme. Pollo Campero took a quick lead with better quality nuggets, although McDonald´s pulled ahead in the fries cooked in the French manner and the barbacoa salsa categories. Pollo Campero needed a win in the intagibles category to pull ahead, but that ended up being a draw. The wi-fi at Pollo Campero is spotchy at best causing us to have to call American Airlines four times before getting someone we could speak with. Likewise the internet at McDonald´s was only free for a half an hour and the computers did not allow for the uploading of pictures. Thus this post is not yet graphically enhanced. Unless it is, in which case I have added the photos elsewhere.

On a side note, congratulations to Amy Reyner for winning slacker of the week. How may you ask was she able to beat out Greg who skipped one day of Spanish classes (out of a total of three days)? Well it seems our Miss Reyner was in LA tonight when we gave her a quick skype call. Normally this would be no issue, but we then remembered that normal people work on Mondays and Tuesdays. Miss Reyner works in San Francisco, but was somehow in LA and not on a business trip. Well done Amy! Only your third Monday of work and you are already calling in sick. We salute you!

On a final quick note big shout outs to my Uncle Jack (not the one that looks like the undertaker, that is Uncle Mark). Uncle Jack has come through with all you could ask of a godfather and has arranged for a tour of a Nicaraguan cigar factory. Unfortunately I will be unable to attend as I need to now fly out of Honduras due to American Arilines suckiness. I know the other three will enjoy it immensely though and thus we thank you Uncle Jack.