Quetzaltenango, Sunday

1349 Waiting in street for pizza at Pizza Ricca. Medium ham and pepperoni ("10 porciones") for Q50; would be 60 with 1.75 litre soft drink but they don't have any non-sugary drinks. Not my best Spanish ever but all practice. Wonder if this is actually worse deal than Little Caesars but we'll see.

Got up about 11. Feel very lazy and not overly keen to come out but wandered round La Democracia a bit - quite liked the bustle and disorder - and went into a few pharmacies in search of sun block. One had some factor 30 at about Q70, and some factor 50 at over Q200. Another only had the same factor 50 at same price. Finally Dr Simi offered me some factor 50 at Q95 so having done a bit of comparison shopping I took that. This feels expensive but it's not *terrible*. And not that I buy sunblock much in UK, but I have a feeling it can be insanely expensive there too if you don't shop around. (I usually just get some factor 30 from a discount shop for a few quid. I'd prefer factor 50 but in UK I don't feel the need to pay a premium to get it, and the discount place only seems to have 30.)

The bottle I brought out from UK was 50ml (though I had topped it up myself so it may actually have been 60ml or so for all I know) and it still has a tiny bit left. I've been plastering it on my head and neck most days but since I've *mostly* worn the fleece or a long-sleeved T-shirt I haven't had to use much on my arms. Maybe I've not been putting enough on, but OTOH my head hasn't burned so that's probably OK. Quite impressed with how long it lasted.

This pizza place is just off Plaza de los Poetas (?), which I noticed is the name of the block with theatre and Bari etc.

1546 Pizza is sort of bare bones, no frills ham and pepperoni and isn't very deep pan (not than anyone said it would be) but using hand span to measure I reckon it's a nominal 15" which isn't bad for a "medium". I was offered pepper and spice but turned them down, both as I didn't expect to use them and as I still have the ones Little Caesars gave me. Just tried putting some spicy powder on a slice (I'm re-heating in the little oven in the flat) and does perhaps add something; I'm more used to the spiciness being baked in, so I hadn't considered using these before.

Happening to read something while bumming around on web about flight safety, I am reminded that I had a near miss with a minibus going to school the other morning. Misled by the direction parked cars were facing and assuming it was a one way street, I stepped out and a minibus I hadn't seen swept just in front of my face. I don't know how close it was, but it doesn't feel too much of a stretch to imagine I could have just stepped out right in front of it.

Oh, I did notice some bloke walk up with two pizza boxes and get into his car which was parked right opposite Pizza Ricca while I was waiting, so at least one person thinks there's a better place nearby.

2215 Been reading and doing homework (including typing a tedious load of vocabulary into an app) and listening to music etc. Quietly enjoyable evening. Sort of keen to get back to school tomorrow, though not as much as I might like. Only ate just over half the pizza (probably due to having quite a few ham sandwiches after getting up), also had a few bits of fruit (grapes, bananas, apples) though not as much as I should. Will probably eat the rest of pizza tomorrow then try to eat more restrainedly rest of the week.

Probably already mentioned it but there's a water purifying device on ground floor which appears to have two cylinder filter things and some means of generating ozone to kill things off (the electronic unit has a light labelled "O_3 concentration"). It's a mild faff lugging the heavy filled water dispenser bottle thingy up several flights of stairs (I typically do this every couple of days, I think), but this is still a pretty cool thing to have - it does mean I have more-or-less limitless free drinking water and saves having to lug bottles of water back from the supermarket (and the associated spending).

Finally took some night photos of view from balcony tonight. I do need to go have a look at the roof terrace view at some point too - haven't been up there yet, even though it's only one flight up from me.

Marco Antonio Solios is playing at stadium here later this month. Flirted with idea of going even though I only know "Si No Te Hubieras Ido" but (no ideal about availability) cheapest tickets are Q330 and I'm not that fussed. I should however have a look and see if there are any cheaper events on there, it might be fun to go and see something a bit random. The stadium is actually pretty close to the flat so I wouldn't have to worry about getting taxis to/from somewhere right out in the suburbs. Not tried to find what else is on yet.

I did note at Farmacias del Dr Simi they offered a lot of medical services - you could see a doctor for Q30, for example. That seems cheap - there's a small hospital near the flat which has a big sign offering a consulation for Q45, which seemed quite cheap to me before seeing Dr Simi's prices today.

2312 Just had shower; always a bit of an effort required for that here. Has occurred to me I am halfway through the trip. Mixed feelings about that. But overall I think I am enjoying myself, I think (though it's hard to be sure) my Spanish has already improved a bit and I'm hoping another probable 3 weeks of school will give me a further boost, especially now I've changed schools. I find myself thinking about returning - perhaps to study for a significant chunk of time - in the relatively near future, but I think I will go ahead with my (very vague at present) South American plans after Christmas. If I can find the money I could imagine coming back here in roughly a year's time for a mixture of study and general tourism. I might feel differently if I could get cheap one-to-one instruction somewhere else, and even if (say) Chile or Argentina don't provide that, it may be that some other country (perhaps one of the other Central American countries) would. But see how it looks nearer the time of course.

I predict that I will appreciate the following when back in UK:

- being able to have a bath

- being able to have a truly hot shower with half-decent flow

- getting out of bath/shower and the room is relatively warm, despite the weather being colder than here

- being able to drink tap water

- having a computer with a big monitor and a fairly reliable internet connection

- not worrying about safety when walking home late at night (though on the flip side, I probably won't be out late at night very often)

Not really feeling tired but my first alarm (which is perhaps a mistake; it's there with the maybe misplaced idea of letting me spend a few minutes awake in a bed before getting up) is 07:15 and I might as well read in bed as in the kitchen.

The above isn't to say I won't consider attending a school in (say) Chile or Argentina. It might be useful to familiarise myself with the local accent and/or be a good social thing to do and/or give me a semi-excuse to spend a couple of weeks in the same place without getting bored. But I don't think (partly based on my own judgement and partly on stuff I have read) that being in a class with even 2-3 other students is a terribly productive way to learn the language, even less so with more students - particularly given I do mostly (even if I don't remember it all perfectly) know most of the grammar and what I really need is to practice with the language and have my errors corrected.

OTOH - and I did notice this option here - maybe I could get cheaper classes with someone advertising privately for one-on-one tuition who might meet me in a cafe for a few hours or similar. I'd *like* a good teacher, but I could perhaps almost just do with someone who could talk to me and perhaps has teacher-y abilities at the level of being able to talk more slowly than normal (a true skill, I think) and just point out errors, even without explaining *why* I am wrong. Have to see how it goes of course. I don't even know for sure where I might go in South America, though I am thinking Chile for a biggish chunk of time. It would be nice to spend some time in Santiago, though it isn't cheap, or maybe I could visit Concepcion (a big university town, IIRC) and study there for a bit if I like it, it might for example be possible to find a student who would be looking to earn some extra cash from teaching part time.

2326 OK, let's go to bed.

(I don't *think* I've ever visited Concepcion, but it annoys me I'm not sure. I do have a recollection of visiting one university-ish place in southern Chile, but I don't remember the name - I can picture sitting outside one particular bar there right now, but that's about all. I don't think it was a particularly big place. Maybe that was in fact in Argentina. Meh. Makes you wonder a bit if this travel is worth it when you don't remember everything, but I guess to use Paul Graham's book analogy, it's like the experience of visiting gets compiled into my brain and influences my behaviour and attitudes and feelings even after I no longer explicitly remember the raw inputs - and also by his analogy, that's why it's not a waste to revisit the same place multiple times.)