The Best Day of My Life

About a week ago, I considered how ludicrous some of the comments I say to myself are when I converse alone. This was triggered by the series finale of Scrubs, a show that adhered itself to the hearts of my roommates and I of late. We finished it last Thursday, and I laid awake after we turned off the DVD just staring at the ceiling, watching my future play on a video screen before my eyes, feeling as if I had just seen an old friend off forever, just said farewell to embark on a brand new stage of life from which I would not be coming back. I was, needless to say, in a very melancholy, reminiscent mood (I use any excuse I can to get into these) as I drove alone to San Antonio, and I thought, Scrubs is the perfect show. The perfect show. Immediately after I realized how ridiculous that sounded. So simple, so easily declared. I talked to a friend of mine about how we make ungrounded, impossible-to-back-up claims like that, and proceeded to tell her things like "Texas is the best" all weekend.

Despite saying that, I come to you now with a claim that I know with absolute certainty is the truth: I just experienced the best concert of my life. Blink-182 came through The Woodlands, Texas tonight on their reunion tour after breaking up about six years ago. To give you the background, they are not the first band that really turned me on to music (that was MxPx) nor the first band I could credit with changing the direction of my music taste (that would be Relient K or Switchfoot) but rather the band whom I found shining and profound among all the other good bands I liked, like a pearl buried in a pile of pretty shells. This band was irreverent, immature, rebellious, rippling with angst, and imbued with all the energy of being a teenager. The last two CD's they released before disbanding defined a period of my life. Every single song I could sing along with, and they were the first CD's I bought that were incredible in their wholeness, for each song, rather than for a few standout tracks. I stopped listening to Blink in high school and only pulled them out of the closet again once I went into my first year of college, and the magic of being young returned and was made stronger by the curious fact that the music was still good. Then, a year and a half later, came the unbelievable news that this Super Band was un-disbanding, was in fact re-banding, and coming near our town in the fall, and we bought tickets and reassured ourselves it was actually going to happen. This concert came at a time when my college career had begun its downturn and was barreling towards a precipice called Real Life under which sits a pit called Responsibility. Tonight, we stopped the train, and sang together as one gigantic crowd.

Most of our conversation during the show consisted of us saying things like "DUUUDDE!!!" and "YEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!" and "AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" with gestures that involved holding our hands palms up with the fingers curled like some kind of Emperor impersonation while screaming our joy towards the cloudy night sky. Every single song, every note, brought back the past eight and a half years. My friend and I screamed every word aloud, hurling the lyrics up in little packages filled with all the stored-up passion and anger I never expressed due to my lack of a rebellious stage, coupled with all the affinity these words had become gilded with over the years. It was like we knew there wasn't anything holding us back, like there wasn't a tomorrow (as cheesy as that sounds, it was true); we were watching a resurrected band. Their humor was dirty. The crowd was pungent, smelling thickly of plant smoke. The lawn was less of a lawn and more a gigantic pit of mud. I had never before felt such a feeling of I-CAN'T-FREAKING-BELIEVE-I-AM-HERE-AAAGGGHHH!!! The place was packed with people, hands raised and rocking out, from stage to farthest back corner. I said goodbye to expectations for graduation, for my wedding day, apologizing to the future wifey. I knew with a sinking and elated feeling that no day would ever beat this one. And what do you do on your last night left worth living? You SING! And we DID!

Leaving was surreal, and getting off 105 onto Highway 6 we joined a close-knit caravan of six cars traveling together through the night, united in our common love for the band that represented our past.

My roommate and I have been shooting knowing glances back and forth. Best Night Ever, we say. That was the Perfect Show, we say. And I know it is true.

What's Going On (Junior Year: Begin)

As a writer, albeit an unsure, indecisive, rusty, and uncommitted one, I am finding that sometimes, I must force myself to write, must scrape a topic from the scoured interior of my brain, must encounter that ever-dreaded Writer’s Block against which all must stumble, and other times, the topics and the themes just come to me, all wrapped up nice and pretty like a Welcome Home! present from life, something like a pie or a free coupon for a pizza. This is the preferable situation to write in, more enjoyable for the reader and the writer both (which is great for me because for most things I write that will be just me). As you might guess, life throws quite a few prime situations when beginning one’s junior year of college. I’ll give you a quick run through – try not to get lost in the technical jargon.

1) A Ticket for Exceeding the Speed Limit in Unjust Little Town

2) Watching so much TV and playing so many video games that my roommates and I actually consider Wii Tennis exercise

3) A Ticket for Parking Without A Permit for a School Event Honoring Our Fallen Aggies

4) Inventing a Game Called Head-Butt Each Other

5) Making a Table By Hand With Afore-Mentioned Genius Roommates

And you can catch the drift. Accompany me, if you would, on my rant explaining, detailing ,and dismantling the case against me for Speeding in Bremond, TX.

Bremond sucks.

Admittedly, that answer is quite immature and unfair. Instead of spending my valuable time watching hours straight of Scrubs or practicing my (virtual) golf swing, I now have the privilege of taking the online Defensive Driving course for a total of 300 minutes. But it’s a good experience. It’s sort of like finally getting a cavity; I’ve been clean my whole life, and now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I have this blight. And I say what everyone else always says – I’m a great driver! And I am, I just got caught being a really good driver. An Eleven Over level driver, to be exact. I never speed more than five over. It wasn’t even a good ticket, for something outrageously unlawful like going through a drive-thru backwards or robbing a bank, or a really bad ticket, for something outrageously meticulous, like stopping an inch over the turn-lane line. I just got caught in a speed trap in a revenue-hungry little Texas town. The injustice!

Now, in reference to point 2, it would be unfair to say that we are just spending our time in the apartment. We have gone to class (at least the majority of classes, three days is an ample amount of time to maybe accidentally let one or five slip) and we have (gasp!) been to the Rec to exercise (this might be a life record) four times in a week and a half. I consider this to be valid credit for a lifetime of New Year’s Resolutions. However, we have also instituted a Candy Bowl Policy in our apartment which basically states, when stripped of all the legislative jargon, that we must have a Candy Bowl furnished with candy such as Skittles or Starbursts or M&M’s at all times, open to easy access on the countertop. The constituents are very pleased.

Yes, I did also get ANOTHER ticket for parking without a permit on an A&M lot. I went to highly attended campus wide Bible Study followed by a ceremony honoring all Aggies fallen in the month prior, or in this case, the summer prior to the memorial service. Thousands of us stand in one of our plazas, uncomfortable, sweating, but together, completely silent, to show our support for the members of our family we might have never met or even seen, who we will never have the chance to meet or see again. It is one of the most beautiful traditions we have here at A&M and it was the event that I attended as a freshman that made me begin to feel the spirit running under the campus and through all those who counted themselves as members of the community. It showed that we loved our own enough to come together for a time of silence to honor their passing, to say and to show that they were important enough to be missed, and that they leave not unknown. I love being a part of this family and I have the deepest respect for the University.

How I feel about the pettiness of the Texas A&M Transportation Services is a different story.

Regarding number four, we do play a game where the object is to headbutt the fatty area of the chest just under the collarbone next to the shoulder. There’s pretty much nothing I can say to make that seem any more intelligent than it actually is so I’ll go ahead and leave it at that.

This same group of headbutting roommates are also now the proud owner of a table we made completely by ourselves, consisting of a narrow door for a table top, support beams, thick ex-fence post legs, and feet bases, soon to be painted with our beloved Texas flag. Before you even think to yourself if a table can get any better, I’ll confidently declare No, it cannot.

That is the latest update of What’s Going On. I’ll leave you on the edge of your seat with a (just what you were dreading!) TO BE CONTINUED!

A Reflective Start to the Year

Classes have started in College Station and since arriving in Texas from Orlando I have done my best to avoid anything resembling responsibility or the acknowledgment of its necessary hold on me. I have not written, because doing so signifies the end of each day, breaks up the flow of time, gives it a start and a finish, and I did not want that, and still do not. I have a passive dislike for my cell and Facebook and even email. I was home for a week and change, and it was the best visit home I have had. I think this was for the sole reason that I did now know when I would leave, and had no organized schedule, and was still sufficiently worry-free after seven months of Latin American culture and a Bob Marley fixation that I did not overload myself with things to do or people to say hi to or ridiculous plans. I let the flow simply do so and it let me spend more time with my siblings and parents than it has ever previously allowed. Then the day to leave came, and I left. I loved my time with my family but I can’t say I wasn’t ready to get to College Station, where my crew of old friends and a new apartment awaited me (along with classes chock full of potential lady interests). The only developments of note were a ticket given me by a dandy police officer in Bremond and a subsequent week spent catching up with the inner circle and unhealthy but nonetheless impressive amounts of Wii Golf and Scrubs. We equipped the apartment and classes came as the twilight period before their commencement whispered away without much fuss. I say without much fuss purely in the detached observational sense; we of course gave the mandatory complaints about the end of summer and anyone (particularly of the female persuasion) who happened into our apartment would surely give a great deal of fuss at the decorations with which we have so embellished it.

To some extent I feel that this leg of life hasn’t started yet. I couldn’t tell you why. These last few days have been a pleasing mush of catching up with old friends and syllabi-day classes, and my thoughts have had no centering relationship, no anchor. But I have learned scattered lessons, like learning to be okay with letting a best friend go. Or, learning to accept the fact that though I am doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, crossing nothing off my to-do list, that might not be bad per se, but rather a little piece of the simple life I have previously enjoyed, and believe exists, somewhere deep down.

I talked to a few of my close friends, members of the Crew, and they feel similarly, like this semester in particular just hasn’t had that distinctive cut off, the cut and dry ending of summer and beginning of classes, of college life. My roommates and I have had fun, and I’ve been able to see a lot of old friends, but it’s different this time. After a few days, I’d have to say I start it not somber, not melancholy, but a gray tinge of reflective. There have been a few bright spots; today I got to help a freshman find a library, and we’ve had a few of those Wow, remember when we first… talks. This whole transition thing just means stuff is changing, and I don’t doubt that something great and even profound might await.

Belated End of Guatemala Entry

As the concluding bookend of my trip to Guatemala, I flew to Orlando to visit my best friend from high school. He was busy with classes but we had great fun when he was home, eating eggs and chicken and cookies and cream milkshakes fortified with actual Oreos. When he was gone I passed the time falling back in love with Arrested Development online. Our hangout finale was the midnight showing of District 9, this sci-fi movie that we had gotten ourselves all pumped up for, and it did not disappoint. We arrived an hour early to a crowd whose overheard speech consisted solely of Halo and Xbox and things one might consider Nerdy and I therefore felt safe and comfortable and at home among them. The great thing about going to a movie that is mostly for a Nerdier side of the population in such a crowd one can do or say anything and it is actually more acceptable the more outlandish and unexpected it is. It’s a good thing to be able to leave judging to the tune of what’s Cool or Not behind. This is an especially good thing when one, for example, dresses up for Pirates of the Caribbean in a costume that was planned out months ahead of time and has a sword fight in front of an appreciative crowd of ten thousand (or however many sit in those stadium theatres), but not so good a thing when one goes to Star Wars accompanied (acceptably) by the usual characters like Han and Luke and Anakin but whose girlfriend chooses to dress as some obscure Jedi who needs face paint and a robe and looks more like a Franciscan monk who is very confused and you wish she could have just been Chewbacca or the Millennium Falcon.

As we sat in anticipation, heavy with excitement, we watched those pre-movie slideshows and I wondered who had the audacity to assume that audiences could somehow be entertained by the same five slides played over and over until ten minutes before the movie starts. There were quotes that merited at least a sympathy-nod of appreciation solely because well-known actors said them, and even an ad advising the crowd NOT to shake their babies, though many of us were actually thinking of doing that right at that very second.

And then the movie began, and the middle came, and then it ended, and I must say it blew away my expectations like a plasma grenade. It was completely unique and a whole new twist on alien-human interaction, but had all the needed elements in a sci-fi, namely laser guns that made people explode and a mech suit that decimated the bad guys and caught an RPG midair. Consider the crowd pleased.

We were justifiably jazzed as we drove home, and had planned on staying up all night till my flight. Leaving had occurred in a similar fashion up until then; I stayed up until my flight talking to my good friend in Buenos Aires before we left, we danced until dawn in Lima, my first visit to Orlando we stayed up all night talking, and I left Guatemala with only an hour and a half of sleep after a grand-finale hangout with the crew there. So, I figured the trip would end in like manner, keeping the streak of spending the last amount of time together in the best way, aka not sleeping. So we talked, and then decided to watch an hour-long video on YouTube of all the cutscenes in Halo 3. After this awakeness-drain we threw out any notion of staying up for the last two hours and set every alarm in the house we could find, which, as you could already guess, did nothing but allow us to wake to a cacophony of three alarm clocks and an oven a scant fifty minutes before my flight left, with a forty minute drive to the airport. We knew we could make it.

And that is how, in a state heavily drugged from lack of sleep, Martin and I said goodbye and I waddled my way into the airport with my ridiculously overstuffed backpack and waited in line at the counter for Southwest, watching the clock until “Yep. There goes my plane. Hmm…” Upon arriving at the counter I informed the clerk that my flight had left ten minutes earlier (yes, do the math, we made remarkable time and I waited twenty minutes in line) and she said it’s okay, we can get you standby to Dallas, and I said Okay, can I go to Houston instead, and she said Okay. And I thought, if it was that easy, why not go to L.A.? And she shook her head No, because people always think that. And It just so happened that by missing my flight, and by flying to a different city, I was able to be on the same flight as my cousin and his wife as they returned from Scotland after a year of studying there. I was really tired and my stomach was empty so luckily the full improbability of the situation did not fully settle on me and I was able to have normal conversations with them that did not center on how crazy the world was and a terribly awkward rendition of It’s A Small World After All. I’m trying to avoid jokes that get the pity laugh lately.

That last statement is absolutely untrue. I live off pity laughs.

With that flight, I made it back to Texas, my home. Right when I flew back into the States from Guatemala City people had joked with me about my Argentina jersey, asking if I was Riquelme or however you pronounce that name, and I loved it, loved the ignorance of soccer players and the easy manner of speaking to anyone, and it was all English, so effortless to joke back or order pizza or organize a standby flight when I missed mine. And I loved being back in the midst of the U.S. culture that I grew to appreciate so much more being gone. But nothing was like being back in Texas.

And then we walked out of the airport and it was freaking hot and as my eyebrows began to singe I thought about the perfect climate back in Guatemala City…

Stuff That Is Going On

I'm going to go ahead and just let this one be all frazzled and completely unrelated in content, in an attempt to give a little glimpse of the happenings of the last month and a half or so. First of all, I have been avidly following the U.S. soccer team in their smoking performance on the world futbol stage. I'm being honest when I say I can actually sit through an entire game and enjoy it, even excitedly gush about upcoming games weeks before they happen (August 12 against Mexico baby!!!). Being down here in Latin America has undoubtedly rubbed off on me, but I can promise that I'm not just one of the fairweather fans jumping on the soccer bandwagon. How can I back this claim? My fanship was tested and purified after attending a game (alone) between the U.S. and Costa Rica back in June, where we were demolished 3 to zip. I, a lone gringo, endured the jeers, stares, and insults of an insanely fired up Costa Rican crowd. Favorite chants against American fans ranged from ¨You are the son of a very disrepectable woman!¨ all the way to ¨You have AIDS.¨ Fortunately I had a throng of drunks around me who protected me from insults as their (admittedly very quiet) pet gringo. A lesser fan would have cracked under the pressure, maybe even claimed to be temporarily supporting Costa Rica, but not this one. I am fire tested. And despite that loss, the States haven't let me down one bit - we made it into the finals of the Confederation tournament in South Africa, the mini-championship before the World Cup to be held there next summer, and surprised the world by eliminating Spain (who could arguably be called the best team on the globe) with authority. In the finals we led Brazil (who could be called the best team in the world with less argument than one would give to someone who said that Texas was generally hot in the summertime) 2-0 into the second half but let the game go and lost by a goal. This smarts especially because my second team is Argentina.

This sense of pride in the States has not been confined to soccer. I've really been reflecting on how amazing it is that we can dream to such an extent, us Americans. Every kid has a dream and no matter how outlandish it can be encouraged. There is opportunity, there is hope, there is an ability to be ever set about change that I have not encountered elsewhere. Even a dream as unlikely as wanting to be a columnist-style writer/amateur rock-star trying to do something about all those things that make the world seem dark while also fighting crime on the side in a sweet suit that includes stretchy pants is not completely out of the picture. As long as the stretchy pants aren't too tight I don't think anybody would have a problem with that at all. Expressing our fondness for the Union, Mason, Beau and I sang the Star Spangled Banner at full belt-out level at the strike of midnight on July 4 and then spent the day at a volcano where we ran down the side and fell and threw a skateboard on hot lava rocks. Now all this is not to say my pride in the Independent Republic of Texas has been diminished in the slightest - quite the contrary. I proudly tell people here about the homeland every chance I get. I think it's especially hard for Mason and Johanna, being from Arkansas; naturally they lament having been born just one mere state away from greatness, and thus express their disappointment with half-hearted jibes and slights. But Beau and I can see through their facade.

That's enough for that little thread. I'd love to tell you now about trip highlights, and the best place to start would be to tell you about Tikal. Yes, one might think it is just another one of those old piles of rocks arranged in a pyramid that old people built a really really long time ago whose sole purpose today is to provide tourists with an opportunity to go back home and tell their friends over dinner of another pile of rocks arranged into a pyramid that old people built a really really long time ago that they have gone to visit, and would they like some more tea. But that simply would not be fitting to describe the absolute, universal importance of this old pile of rocks. Ladies and gentlemen, this is in fact the location used to film that scene at the end of Star Wars Episode IV where the ships (an X and a Y wing, I believe? check me on that) fly in over a green forest with some old pyramids and then Princess Leia gives medallions to Han and Chewie and Luke and the guys! Yeah. So that means that instead of saying that they've been to Tikal, an awesome Mayan ruin in northern Guatemala, these very same tourists can now say something to the effect of ¨Why yes, I have to been to the Fourth Moon of Gavin. Quite nice in the fall.¨ Writer's Note: Forgive me if that is not the right moon. I'm probably way off. (Samsonite!)

Before Tikal, we went to a great place in the forest, a little eco-lodge tucked away in the woods, and spent the afternoon...passed out in our room. After Tikal, we went to El Faro, a great place on the beach, a little resort tucked away near the Pacific Coast, and spent the morning...passed out in our room. It was a great trip for sleeping. Also for trying to float out to sea on a log, beating our chests and whooping and acting like monkeys, knocking coconuts out of trees, and for poor, unfortunate Mason, pouring (rotten, as he quickly learned) coconut juice (actually, putrid would be a better word) all over his body upon opening one of the afore-mentioned coconuts, in accordance with his role as the Silverback. Some time later we went to El Salvador with pastor Rene from the church, to the town where he is from, and spent the first day...passed out in a four hour siesta. Along with sleeping a lot, this summer has brought such exciting events as regularly drinking whole liters of yogurt and also not showering. We entertain ourselves by saying very funny things, and then quoting ourselves at least eighteen times a day for the six weeks following said hilarious comments.

English classes are going well. I help teach at a middle school from 730am to 1230, and afterwards we teach sixth graders on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4pm, and we´ve gone through several rounds of adult classes. One just ended that was at 1pm on Tuesday and Thursday, and we also have one at 730 pm on Monday and Wednesdays. Next week hopefully we'll get started teaching a handful of people at Chili's on the Tuesdays and Thursdays until we leave. Now, if you think you feel bored just having read that, you should see the faces of the kids we bring to the 4pm class. You'd think we were enthusiastically telling them to come learn about the multitudes of varieties of paint shades under the umbrella-color of magenta, followed by a lesson on how they make those wooden popsicle sticks.

This has been a long entry...hope you feel up to date. In Dallas I once went to a concert where I was the sole member of the audience, besides a groupie who gave me a sticker and an old guy that left after a few minutes. The artist on stage was, well, not great, but I felt bad and stayed for the whole show, and afterwards he looked out and said "I don't want to point fingers or anything, but thanks for coming to the show everybody..." It was sad, to be sure, but there was a sort of head held high flair to it.

Now I don't want to point fingers or anything, but thanks for coming to the show everybody...

Guatemala...A Belated Introduction

Yes, it is true that I have not written an entry in over seven weeks. But I´ve only just arrived in Guatemala City six weeks ago and it´s taken me that long to adjust to Guatemalan Time. And as shown by the promptness of this update, I obviously am still much too punctual for these new Central American standards.

The update, then. I am here in Guatemala with Beau, a really good friend from high school, and I arrived without the slightest idea what I would be doing, other than that the whole summer would be used serving in some way while also knowing that I would inevitably learn invaluable life lessons that could be used as clues to determine my purpose in life or as the morals to children´s picture books. Heavy stuff.

We began teaching soon after arrival in a middle school that sits 30 minutes away, walking at a zombie´s pace (we leave for class at 7 am each morning, you understand the resemblance to the undead). I´m an assistant teacher for eighth and ninth graders and it has just recently started going really well, as we finally won the respect of the rough, undisciplined students. I won´t tell you how we did this but it does involve killing and then eating a polar bear. Seriously though, we have just this week began to notice real bonds of friendship with some of the kids, and with the really unruly ones we just practice insults that will hopefully make them cry.

We live with an amazing family, the Polancos. Our house mom Lilly is a firebrand Christian and we naturally poke fun at her all the time and tell her how we love drinking and less than respectable women. She jokes back by making us climb over the wall to get inside. Our house bros Fernando and Mario, or Suso, 26 and 19 respectively, have been great friends, and truly brothers. This is in spite of the fact that we barely see Fer due to his gringa girlfriend being here and his sickening state of puppy love that brings us endless entertainment. Suso was ensnared by another gringa, a good friend of ours who left last week, Johanna from Arkansas. We were not above assembling gangs of sixth graders to spy on them and pretend we saw them making out. Or in sending in Lilly and making sure she actually did see them making out. And our house dad Mario spends his days catching movies on TV. Interesting side note - he did meet the Che, and fought during a stint in the Cuban revolution. Those days are over now, and we bond by making crazy gestures at Lilly behind or in front of her back.

I´ll be back to update what we´ve actually done since being here, including running down a volcano, a lake excursion in El Salvador, and of course, many tales of the amazing national treat, the ChocoBanano. If my current level of cultural assimilation holds, that´ll be in less than a month. Try not to fall off the edge of your seats.

Arenal and San Jose

I left Monteverde and went by Jeep-boat-Jeep to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano. It was weird leaving the Pension hostel - I wasn't able to say bye to the crew I'd hung out with over the weekend. As soon as I got in the first Jeep and began driving through the Costa Rican countryside I wasn't in as good of a mood as I had been before, and this continued through the boat ride, and the second Jeep to my hostel. I stayed in Arenal Backpacker's Resort, reputed to be the best hostel in all of Costa Rica, and was able to wish a best friend happy birthday through Facebook as soon as I got there. There was nothing to do in the city - it was too cloudy to see the volcano, and I slept for hours.

I realized that I didn't feel like making new friends in this new city... I had it made back in Monteverde with a small weekend crew, several temporary close friends, but I was still living in a cloud after the semester abroad and the amazing friendships from that. What I learned in La Fortuna, and what I realized that I had come to Costa Rica to learn, was that personally, I needed friends to make travel real, to make it fun. Without friends, the Arenal volcanco was just a big, stupid, hot mountain. And these friends didn't have to necessarily be a lifelong crew, but rather people to share life with, whether that means years, or decades, or a semester, or even a day. But I had a friend to go see in San Jose, which made me more excited than I was disappointed I didn't see the Arenal lava flow. I was on the verge of bungee jumping that morning, but decided I'd wait to try and talk my friend in Guatemala into doing it with me. So I stayed in town, read while it rained, got some ice cream, and got on the bus to San Jose. I accidently got off in the wrong city and had to pay 20 bucks for a taxi after a 4 dollar bus ride, but I didn't even mind, as close as I was to hanging out with my ISA friend. However I did realize that from then on I should include a "Stupid Mistakes" section in the budget that should basically multiply what I should be spending by three.

Learning the lesson about friends made me feel contented; I am leaving Costa Rica too soon to experience anything but a tease, with all the unspeakably sweet sights here, but I'm ready to be with people who'll make whatever I'm doing, whatever we're seeing, spectacular. A friend made San Jose more meaningful yesterday, and Guatemala will be the same.

A song by John Legend came on the radio on the Jeep ride from Monteverde; I have a playlist of songs on my Shuffle that will bring back so many memories after this trip. I peeled off a beer label from a cafe in Monteverde, in memory of a best friend who always used to peel them off back in South America, and I stuck it on my moleskin book. Tonight I'll try and make it to the Costa Rica-U.S. soccer game, and after that, I'll hit the road for Guatemala, the third and final chapter of the trip, where I'll get by with a little help from an old friend...