Getting back in the Groove

People thought we were crazy to sell our things, quit our jobs, and travel the world. Especially when 1 year turned into “maybe 2 or 3”. When you say 2 or 3 years, people think it's an eternity, but I don't know what sort of life you are living; mine seems to always be flying by! Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it every single day, and maybe that's why it is going so quickly. But all the time I'm thinking, “thank goodness we didn't just plan to be gone for 3 months because it would already be over!”. Then when we were home for a week during the wedding reception time, I really felt what it was like for it to all be over. It was just that, completely over. Life was busy and occupied with very different things and I wasn't spending my time reflecting on the traveling or what I learned or how life was different. Life was no longer different at all and far too easily, snapped back into a different way of life (one that I purposely left behind).

I wasn't surprised by this though, in fact it's happened to me before. Depending on how long you are gone there can be varying degrees of reverse culture shock. For a friend of mine whole lives in a very small farming community, a year abroad was an incredible journey but left her struggling to connect in meaningful ways when she returned as many others didn't really understand how to relate to her experiences and quantified it simply as “your trip”. I sort of quantified this time “at home” as a blip on our journey. Knowing that the stay wasn't permanent, I just went with it, understanding that I would be back on our journey soon enough. Still, it took about a week to get into our groove again. Luckily, we found the right place to do it: Antigua, Guatemala.

Antigua (the Colonial capital of Guatemala, not the Caribbean island), is a gem, and if you've been to Guate, you've probably been there. If you haven't, maybe you should. We spent 5 or 6 days here, slowing our pace, drinking coffee, and getting back into our groove (for me, this means daily meditation and yoga practice which I was very much missing). A smaller, grid-based city, Antigua is quite easy and enjoyable to navigate on foot and we spent hours walking around and exploring. A magnificent plaza principal draws people of all types throughout the day and is a lovely place to enjoy the fountain, share a coffee, people-watch, read a book, or snap some photos. 

We did notice a somewhat prominent and diverse ex-pat community here which contributes to a wide range of restaurants and bars with influence from all around the world. This gave me the feel of being “at home” again (this time I am meaning San Francisco), and was somewhat enticing. However, we are traveling here with the purpose of understanding Guatemalans and the Guatemalan culture better, so we avoided the ex-pat scene and per usual, found wonderful local gems of our own! And it didn't take us long!

The first night we ate in a place that my description may not do justice. Step in off the street (and up -nearly all the the doors are a step or 2 up off the sidewalk) into a very small tienda (snack/drink/convenient mart more or less). It's about 8 feet by 5 feet in size.  Basically you can almost touch the counter when you walk in. The shelves are packed floor to ceiling. Literally. The items on the floor are on the floor, and the items on the top shelf are piled until they touch the ceiling. It is in this way that an 8x5 foot store can offer nearly everything that a Walmart does! Then, get invited behind the counter where there is another room, now like a dining room, plastered with images of Jesus and all the Popes there ever were and you sit at a table for 10 even though you, so far, are the only customers. A little grandma tells you what she is cooking back in her kitchen but she can tell by the look on your face, you might not be convinced. So then takes you back into her kitchen so you yourself may have a look. It looks great so you eat there! We had a delicious hearty portion of “chicken in yellow” (in yellow sauce I guess?) and it was a delightful chicken stew type dish with rice and potatoes and veggies and chicken and tortillas and guacamole. By the end of our meal, other customers were starting to trickle in. Now this is a Guatemalan experience! And one we very much enjoyed. 

Stay tuned for our next stop: Lake Atitlan!  I'm so excited to visit the place I came nearly exactly 8 years ago that changed the course of my life forever.

Per usual, exercise patience and tolerance and ignorance and ignore my spelling, grammatical errors, and modifications of correct punctuation.