Monday, March 30, 2009

Old Roomie Memories

Tonight Jenna and I went to dinner at Uno's Chicago Grill with Alex and Caitlin, Anah and Dan, and Maria. Maria is an old roomate of Alex and I back in our UW Madison days so of course we sat around discussing old times and all the fun we had. Maria was very brave to move into a house with 6 guys in it, but we did have a little fun with her at times. The picture below came up in conversation and I promised that I'd post it online for the world to see.
One night while Maria was sleeping peacefully in her room Alex and I had been out for a drink or 2 and thought it would be fun to sneak into Maria's room to wake her up and record it on camera. The room was completely dark, Alex snuck in, and I snapped this picture just in time to catch the horror on Maria's face. Priceless! We were also reminiscing about Russ's birthday party with Edward 40 hands and I felt compelled to put up this picture as well.
Thinking back to good times with the old roomies 5 years ago it just amazes me where we all are now. I never would have imagined that Maria, Alex, and I would be sitting around a table in Honduras at this stage of our lives with Nic coming down for a visit in a month. Makes me wonder where we'll all be 5 more years from now...

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Copan Ruinas

Last weekend, Jesse and I escaped out of San Pedro for some much needed respite (for me anyway, he had just come back from Roatan) to Copan Ruinas. Copan is a cute little village up in the mountain next to a some Mayan ruins. We have both been there before, but it is safe, and we wanted to get out of the city for fresh air and relaxation. Here's some pictures of the ruins and the city.

A ground floor view of the main plaza. The structures are all very well maintained considering how old they are.

An elevated view of the main plaza. This is the view that is depicted on the back of the one lempira bill here in Honduras.

The ball court. There were two teams, and they couldn't use their hands (like soccer) and tried to the ball into a hoop up in the air (like basketball). Legend states that the losing team had to sacrifice their best player after the game. Most Mayan settlements had ball courts. The biggest ball court is at Chichen Itza in Mexico, which we had visited last summer.

Scarlet macaws in the trees at the ruins. Most of their wings are clipped so they can't fly away, but they still look pretty cool.

The main plaza in Copan. The weekend we were here, there was a celebration with music and huge plastic blow-up beer bottles. Copan is set up very typical of Central America, with the main plaza in the middle, and the rest of the town stems off from the main square. Jesse and I enjoy walking around the plaza and people watching.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Speedbumps are Dangerous

Friday, after school, I came home after a Spanish lesson and had decided to enjoy the sunny but not too hot weather and go for a nice run. Lately, I had been running in a guarded neighborhood pretty close to our house, but on Friday, I felt good and wanted a challenge. So I laced up my shoes and headed down the street. As I was enjoying the wonderful jog and was feeling pretty good about it, I turned down the street that heads to where a lot of the other teachers live, called Jardines. On this street there are many speedbumps, which the Honduran civil engineers have used for speed control, since the police don't have radar guns. Many of the speedbumps are not like the blacktop speedbumps from the states, but are actually a row of round metal pieces with spaces between the metal. They look kind of like hamburger buns trying to cross the street like baby ducklings. However, as I am running, a car comes up behind me and I step to the side to get farther on the edge of the road. I step on one of the speedbumps, my foot slips down the side of the speedbump, and I proceed to severely twist my ankle. As I am a good mile from home, I had to hobble home on a painful ankle, since in my hurry to go for a run, I had forgotten to grab some money for a cab, just in case this sort of thing happened.

As one can see by the photo, my left ankle is significantly larger than my right. I know that its not broken, and have been taking a steady diet of ibrupofen since it happened. The wine night I had planned for Friday night with the girls did happen, quite smoothly actually, with my foot elevated on a stool the whole night. I know that this incident is my own fault, but I did feel a bit sorry for myself, since I had to nurse my ankle all by myself this weekend due to Jesse having a visitor here from Wisconsin. They left me all alone and went out to the islands.

Monday, March 2, 2009

More Funny Kids

This morning I was on duty and correcting tests at the bottom of the stairs trying to keep the kids downstairs during recess when one of my 8th graders came up and asked me if I wanted some bubble gum. I said no thanks. Not giving up he proceeded to tell me that it was really good gum and I told him gum isn't allowed in school. In one last attempt to give me some gum he said, "But Mister it's really good... it's from the space!" At this I looked up and saw that the gum was Orbitz. I couldn't help but laugh and of course try some of his space gum.