Honduras - Day 1

It's been a very interesting day so far. Woke up at 3 AM to catch our 6 AM flight out of Newark for Honduras. I only got about two and a half hours of sleep because I was still packing and getting things ready.

We arrived safely in Honduras, catching the few hours of shut eye we could on the plane. By the time we arrived, we were pretty much awake. Even still, we managed to fall asleep on the way to San Pedro Sula.

The drive from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula was beautiful. Teguc's traffic patterns are insane. There's like eight point intersections and beat up cars just going for turns. It's not nearly as crazy as China or Taiwan, but it's definately a mess.

Before we left Teguc, we grabbed something to eat. It was really interesting seeing the myriad of chain restaurants that had invaded the city. TGI Fridays, McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Hut, Dominoes, KFC, Burger King, Wendy's, pretty much everything was represented. We actually had a hard time choosing a place to eat because we had our luggage cleverly hidden under a tarp in the bed of the pickup. We eventually chose this pollos fritas place called "Church's Chicken". The food was okay, the really interesting part was the way the soda tasted. It was kind of hard to really put my finger on it, but it tasted better than the coke back at home. I remember reading things about how the coke outside of the united states is better because it still uses cane sugar. I don't know.

After lunch, we hit massive traffic heading out of Teguc. It was hot so I eventually fell asleep. I didn't wake up until we were a good ways out of the city. The cool windy breeze was a great way to wake.

Traveling through the mountains is a sight to behold. You could see the clouds' shadows as they casually made their way across the landscape giving character to the rolling hills and valleys. No matter how long I stared out at that landscape, I couldn't get bored of it.

It's really interesting to see all this "virgin" land with little pockets of development smattered across the landscape. A lot of these places were like hobbled shanty towns made of whatever materials of wood, steel, and stone the people could gather up.

We finally arrived in San Pedro Sula three hours later. In the midst, we stopped to have "siesta". Both Linshuang and I had slept plenty on the car, so we just enjoyed the quiet shade instead. San Pedro Sula is a pretty small town. It's got about 5 or 50 internet cafe's on every block. The town pretty much revolves around "central park". There's just a lot of hustle and bustle for such a quaint little town.

The hotel that we're staying at is rather nice. It's a lot better than I had anticipated. We have AC, both the cooling kind and the electric kind, and we also have a tiny fridge and TV. The place is really cozy, very reminiscent of the type of places you see in movies with the big square central shaft with the rooms around it. There's access to the roof which gives a nice view of sheet metal rooves and rolling hills.

My Spanish is terrible. I can understand bits and pieces, but overall, I might as well not understand anything at all. I do my best to speak but it takes me so long to formulate my sentences that I'm probably better off pointing and smiling.

Although I feel like a foreigner and really out of place, oddly enough, it doesn't feel that different than back home. Whenever I'm in public, I generally feel out of place as it is. I thought I would feel more so, but I don't.

For dinner, we went to some local fair and had beef, eggs, refried beans, pickled onions, fried plantains, and the like. It was okay. The refired beans and the plantains were very good but the beef was very tough and kind of flavorless.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and practiced the skit that we would be performing for the adults tomorrow. We'll be performing the same skit, which is a puppet show, to the kids throughout the week. It was good nothing like what CG.Drama performs, but still, very accessible and fun.

These next two weeks look like they're going to be great.