Catching Up

July was a bonanza month for visitors -- two! -- although sadly the visits were both much too brief. Tia Kerry, my sister, came for five days, and Tio Rico, my friend of more years than I care to count, was here for a whirlwind weekend. The days, as Calvin would say, were just packed.

For starters, the requisite visits were made to a variety of ruins:

San Francisco -- one of my favorites, in part for the way the palms echo the broken arches, as you can see here. Also for the museum dedicated to San Hermano Pedro (where unfortunately no photography is allowed) which features a multitude of testimonials, his death shroud, and some rope underwear. Creepy in the best way.

All those Saturdays spent at the Cloisters paid off when I was able to explain the instruments of the Passion to my atheist sister (except -- what's that weird Michael Jackson glove doing in there? I have no idea what that is).

Casa Santo Domingo:

Lovely ruins, beautifully integrated with a fancy pants hotel (supposedly the finest in all of Central America). And one of the best all-you-can-eat brunches I've ever had.

Kerry and I visited the back parts of La Merced, perhaps the most beautiful church in Antigua, with its wedding-cake plasterwork facade.

The ruins are charming in their own right; Pablo almost got to take a dip in the perhaps holy (but certainly unhealthy) fountain:

And but for a bit of cloud cover, we got a clear view of Volcan Agua from the back rooftop.

We also got to peek in on the daily life of the school next door (and were clearly not the first gringos to have done so -- n.b. the SOS sign in the window).

Kerry and I also made use of La Merced as backdrop for a highly questionable faux christening photo shoot. You see, we have this beautiful dress in the family, used for generations of baby baptisms. It seems a shame not to make use of it just because none of us are, um, practicing Christians. With apologies to those who (understandably) might find it offensive, or just plain weird, I like to think of it as a post-modern sort of baptism, where the only thing that really matters is the documentation...

Both visitors experienced some gustatory successes and failures, including:

This strange "paterna" fruit, difficult to see clearly in this picture, but don't worry, because it's really not something you want to seek out in your local market. Inside a hard green pod are some hard brown seeds, covered with a white cottony substance. The flavor of the white stuff isn't bad exactly, but the texture is, well, like wet cotton. Utterly uninspiring. The second one remained unopened.

A visit to the fancy Dulce Tipico shop, where there were some hits and misses. Hits: red ball of tamarind-flavored sugar, chocolatey sapote bar, and the shop itself. Misses: candied figs and quite a few other mysterious sweets.

Two meals at La Fonda de la Calle Real, my favorite spot for comida tipica ("Tipica" is an essentially positive attribute in the guatemalteca food world, not a ho-hum sort of designation. More could be said about that phenomenon -- perhaps we'll have a Culinary Roundup post in the not too distant future.)

Tio Rico thought it was just OK. Pablo wants to know when he can have some. But most exciting was when I turned around to discover I was sitting in...

Bill's chair!

I think Pablo is more of an Obama fan.

El P is in general happier going out for a little snack than a full-on dinner. Tia Kerry kept him smiling at Fernando's, my favorite coffee spot, which has a much prettier atmosphere than you can appreciate from these shots.

I miss you both!

Onward Ho!

No philosophizing today, and not much in the way of pictures either. But a very brief update to let my faithful readers know that I've made it through the Slough of Despond, as we finally received Preapproval, and have now set sail on the dangerous waters of PGN!

August 2nd was the momentous date, not that I'm keeping track or anything.

Visitor pictures coming soon, really. For now you'll have to make do with one of His Cuteness, five months old today, and in a mild state of shock at our latest news.