Antigua - Getting To Know Your Soul

Coming back from Huehuetenango, I had one more week of Spanish classes. At the end of it, I think I made some decent progress in Spanish, but, of course, a lot more time and effort is required to get to even a remote level of fluency. After all, listening and understanding is the hardest part, in my opinion, and that cannot be taught in a text book. Especially, since Spanish is spoken more quickly than other languages.

That said, even if my classes were over, I still had two more weeks in Antigua and I intended to make the most out of it. That includes continuing to learn Spanish (in particular vocabulary), walking through town, eating at restaurants, going to the market, checking out some bars, catching up on life admin, calling friends, soaking up the atmosphere in this colourful town and trying to get a better understanding of its soul. After all, it was and still is my favorite place in the world.

Those two weeks, I spent a lot of time with Maria in the evenings or during her lunch break.

For example, we went to the fun fair one last time to ride the most ridiculous attraction, checked out the pizzeria and speakeasy bar that she works at and drove up to Cerro de la Cruz to get a bird's eye view over Antigua. Basically, Maria told me that she felt like a touris in her own city - luckily she said it in a good way.

The most dramatic event happened on a Thursday, however. It was a public holiday in Antigua as the town celebrated the 500th anniversary of something (I forgot what it was). This means that the town was buzzing with life and we watched a procession together and just enjoyed the atmosphere in the town that day.

However, in the afternoon, Maria got a sudden call. Her workplace was literally on fire. A gas leak has led to a fire and we rushed to see the severity of the situation. The fire brigades of Antigua and surrounding towns were trying their best to extinguish the fire - with success even though it came at the cost of having water everywhere. It certainly was a real spectacle. Luckily, nobody got hurt and by miracle not much apart from the roof had been destroyed. In fact, they manage to repair it to a sufficient degree in order to open for business on Saturday - its busiest night.

Anyway, those last 2-3 weeks, I got an even better feel for Antigua and fell in love with it even more than before. Maria and I only had a few more days left together and there were still a few more things we wanted to explore together.もっと詳しく