Quetzaltenango, Saturday

1257 It's Revolution Day, IIRC. Not that I see much obvious sign of public celebration.

Woke up about 0830 with one of those irrational sensations of panic which rapidly turned into a mixture of despair and a sensation of being trapped. No reason for this, of course, and fortunately I went back to bed after a drink of water and it disappeared.

Woke up again 0930ish and sort of drowsed in bed. I sent an e-mail to school 2 so I hope they reply; I have a nagging doubt that was the school which said I should call them, but I saw so many I just can't remember. Bit reluctant to call on a public holiday too. But I may call later this afternoon if I haven't had a reply, since I have a feeling they sort out the teachers for the week on Sunday. Meh. Fingers crossed they reply first.

At La Venesa; had a bit of a struggle to find it but I have now got it located in relation to central park. Plan for today is just to wander round and try to get my bearings. Had a 'corona' (a bread pastryish thing) with my coffee; quite nice. Apart from the fact I don't like the prices in UK coffee shops enough to visit them regularly even for coffee, I would never indulge like this there as these kind of extras seem insanely priced. You pay three quid for a coffee and they want to charge you another quid or two for a microscopic biscotti or something. Here I think the coffee is about Q6, and a tostada (a big round biscuity thing maybe 10cm diameter) is Q0.5. So about 10% of the price of the coffee. My corona was an indulgent Q1.5, but even so, not disproportionately priced compared to the coffee.

I need to be careful not to overdo these little snacky luxury things or I'll end up going back home fatter than when I left; I was hoping to somehow quietly lose weight over the trip.

Still, I expect to clock up a fair amount of walking today which should help.

1313 Still at LV. School replied, they normally require a deposit before arranging a teacher as they still have to pay the teacher if the student doesn't turn up, but as they are closed today they are making an exception but want me to confirm I will be there. Have replied confirming price and hours, but it looks like I'm in. I just hope more than usual I'm not sick on Monday morning as it could be awkward if I am.

Don't have gut churning 'did I do the right thing?' feelings, so either a) I am quite happy with this decision and/or b) I realise it's not that big a deal. (Yes, I waffled a lot yesterday and I don't regret that, but it's not a trivial decision but also not life threatening.)

Tempted to have another coffee and/or bready thing (they seem a bit too unsweet - not the I'm complaining - to warrant being called pastries, but I'm probably being unreasonable, a croissant is a pastry IIRC and I don't find them all that sweet, not that I eat this kind of thing much) but I do want to try to get the layout of the place sorted in my head and get some exercise walking and just generally 'see' stuff so I will be strong. I'll probably have several more coffees today anyway.

The book I'm reading on my phone (Andy McNab's Recoil) is failing to grip so let me waffle further about my modified tipping algorithm. As I say, I think my Guatemalan Spanish teacher said this was reasonable. If the pre-tip bill is x:

- basic tip y is 0.1x

- if y is less than Q10, tip is min(x, 10), otherwise tip is y

The thinking is that on a 'big' bill (which I seldom have because I go to cheap places) I tip 10%, maybe with a tiny bit of rounding. But on a Q10 bill a 10% tip is piddly, so I tip Q10 anyway. This was my earlier tipping algorithm. But that grated when I was faced with buying eg a Q3 coffee and tipping over 300% by handing over a Q10 tip, hence the compromise that on really cheap things I just tip 100%.

In some sense this might seem trivial and/or miserly. But I think it's quite important - I know it's not quite the same, since AIUI people often work just for tips, but I have seen relatively sane people on web forums get massively heated over US tipping etiquette. I want to be 'fair' but I also (let's be honest) don't want to make my holiday cost more than it needs to and (true, but would be deceptive if I pretended this was the only reason) I don't want to be the flash tourist twat with the implied "hahaha, I can tip you an hour's wages because even that is nothing to me, third-world scum" attitude.

Not that I do feel particularly rich because I'm foreign. Even eating in cheap places a meal is costing me about three or four quid with tip, which is only about half what I'd pay in a cheap UK place like Wetherspoons, and arguably the Wetherspoons meal would be more substantial. I'm sure the fall in the value of the pound doesn't help there, but even if we imagine it back up around $1.6/£ it would only lower prices here by about 20% if my rough calculation is right.

(Nor am I saying Guatemala *is* third world. The description doesn't fit well with me, but it may be technically true. I don't know. Maybe the term is not used these days anyway.)

Incidentally, part of the tipping thing is that I don't want to be penalised for going into two separate places and having a Q3 coffee in each, compared to having two Q3 coffees in the same place. If I always tipped a min of Q10 it would cost Q26 for the two in two places compared to Q16 for two in one place, whereas my current system costs Q12 either way.

I am wearing fleece over a long-sleeved T-shirt. It's a bit too warm to be wearing this, TBH, but not terrible. I was tempted not to wear the fleece but weather forecast suggested it would get a bit cooler later. I should have left it at the hotel though, it's not like I plan to be miles away from the hotel or stay away from it until late tonight so it wouldn't have been a big deal if I had got too cold later.

Oh, I did happen to walk past my chosen school this morning without trying on my way trying to find this place. Not too surprising given it is so near the hotel, but perhaps a mildly good sign. :-)

Waiting - not too impatiently - for someone I can ask for the bill. I feel pleasantly unhurried on the whole. Do need to look into extending my booking at current hotel up to say Saturday now the school is confirmed. I don't want to be changing accommodation halfway through the week.

1509 At Palacio de los Jugos, having a papaya juice with grilled chicken breast, soup, rice and tortillas for 20+tip. Might have a coffee after before I leave. Have walked a fair chunk of the calles (E-W) around central park. Not all - particularly those to N/NW of it probably undersurveyed - but still. Spitting gently. Will at some point do a similar walk concentrating on the N-S avenidas.

1528 Well that was really good, especially the soup. I hope I don't get a bad reaction (of course I'd have to struggle to pin it down, but still) as I could see coming here quite often. I will have a coffee. Only shame is that the seating is ridiculously low.

1606 Still sitting here with empty plate in front of me. I've been looking round making eye contact with guy who I think is the waiter for the last few minutes but he will not come over - I am the only customer. I am reluctant to actually call out in case he isn't the waiter, because if he is why the fuck won't he come over? Fuck this, I'm going to have to risk being rude.

OK, no problem. I guess maybe he was just being polite leaving me to myself and nothing ushering me out. Have asked for a coffee. I may not get round to walking much more today depending on light but that's fine, I have tomorrow and sort of later days too.

2010 Back at hotel, been here a while. Had to overtip in PdlJ as I did at LV due to lack of change, but there you go. Got 2x600ml bottles of diet coke for Q12 after semi-epic search - accidentally handed over 3xQ10 bills but luckily shopkeeper noticed and was honest.

Have done a bit of laundry. Uploaded a few photos, unless my phone is just broken the upload speed here seems astoundingly high.

Watching some stuff on Youtube etc. A teensy bit dull but actually what I miss most is sitting properly in a chair and looking at a screen I am not holding. I end up sprawling around the bed in various postures which all get uncomfortable after a while. I do have a chair but even if I were to sit in that I'd still have to hold phone in my lap and look down and I think that would be even less comfortable.

Pedometer app says 16,799 steps today so I did do a fair bit of walking.

2156 Just booked this hotel for extra nights so I now check out on Sunday. Same price as before, Q95+22% tax per night.

Homestay is *way* cheaper - it's similar most places I think, but my school charges USD50/week for homestay, private room (but presumably shared bathroom unless you are lucky) with three meals a day included. The school's own accommodation (shared bathroom, but presumably a private room) is USD38/week (no meals). I don't know how far out a host family could live, one school said within 5 mins walk of central park IIRC but don't think mine says that. Mostly academic as barring major change of heart I'm not up for homestay.

Also the accommodation here is as cheap as I could expect, it's not expensive and I'd be paying it anyway even if I wasn't staying at a school. I may consider other options, just possibly I could rent a flat for a month, but I am not sure I'd be up for the commitment - see how it goes.

Oh, renewing the booking makes me realise I *did* book a double room anyway, this isn't a lucky break.

2233 Had to turn off the spellchecker on phone. It's a useful feature except some braindead moron decided that when you tap the screen to move the cursor to a mistyped word, it should pop up a little menu offering the choice of 'add to dictionary' or 'delete', so you have to make a second tap somewhere else to get rid of that menu before you can correct the mistake. I'd be perfectly happy with it doing the red underlining for words not in the dictionary, but there seems to be no way to get that without enabling the menu. It's been quietly driving me nuts writing stuff like this drivel on the phone for weeks.

OK, being scrupulously fair that was indeed happening, but I had turned off various predictive features and I can't quite remember why they were causing me such grief, so I've turned them all back on and reenabled the spellchecker. No, the spellchecker still pops up that fucking menu when I try to correct - yes, I can choose a predicted replacement from the bottom of the screen but the pop up is still there. Let's try leaving the prediction on but turning the spellchecker off - again, a massive shame I can't have it underlining stuff while otherwise keeping the fuck out of my way.

I saw my phone was using the Blackberry Spellchecker, so I installed Gboard just to be able to select the Google Spellchecker, but it appears to behave exactly the same. And since - thanks (genuinely) to a popup warning for pointing this out - a spellcheck app could in theory snoop on everything I type, I can't go in search of a third party spellcheck app which might leave me alone except for underlining misspellings.

Swiftkey doesn't seem to have its own spellchecker - fair enough, but no use.

So it looks like I have to do without spellchecking. Arseholes. I'll leave the predictive stuff on since superficially that does nothing except show suggestions unless I click on them. I am not sure they add any value for me - in English at least - but let's give them another try.

(It would be nice if I could control spellcheck and prediction on a per language basis - my Spanish is poor enough they're worth the hassle there - but that is admittedly a niche requirement. This stupid spellcheck popup issue does annoy me though.)

I think I forgot to say earlier that I had a shower this morning and the water was actually warm verging on truly hot. The flow wasn't great but I doubt you ever get that from these suicide showers (and my shower at home isn't exactly a power shower, though it's still a cut above what I am getting here)