hours later and i have completed my mission, shopped until my feet hurt, and now have so many gifts for my loved ones (and myself!) that i cannot avoid the post office any longer. i'm pretty proud of myself right now. i've done alot of cool things on my trip but perhaps this is the biggest accomplishment, given how much i abhor shopping.
sorry, guys, guatemala just isn't a place with anything you'd like. you wouldn't wear the clothes and i don't wanna buy crappy tshirts. maybe honduras is more of a man's place for shopping. it sounds manlier.
i did find my knife, which is kind of a manly gift, but all i could find were switchblades and i don't think sending a box of them home would be smiled upon. but i did buy one for myself. pretty stainless steel blade with a faux wood handle. talked that guy down to 30q (about $3.50).
i'd been eyeing a blanket in a shop since i got here, i really don't know why since i don't even own a bed, but it is so beautiful, made out of different patches from the different districts around guatemala. today i finally went into the store to look at it more closely and come up with a price i could live with. her opening offer was 600q (around $75), and it was worth every bit of that. my first bid was 300q ($37ish) and finally settled almost directly in the middle. i know that's alot of money here but for some reason i just had to have this blanket. and it weighs so much it'll probably cost me $200 to mail home.
i got into a groove with my bargaining style (the half valium i took helped, love the pharmacies here). i'd find what i liked, the woman would give me a price, i'd make a super low counter offer, we'd exchange prices till i found her best price, then i'd drop everything i wanted saying how expensive this stall was and i think i saw something similar down the street. at that point her best price would get better as she ran after me, we'd haggle something even lower than her best best price, and i'd accept. the only place this didn't work was the blanket store because she knew she had the best stuff and few others stores had anything like it. and one more accomplishment of the day, i did everything in fantastic spanish. no one even tried to speak english to me. yippee!
haggling or not, i'm pretty sure i still blew a weeks budget today. and i'll blow another weeks on shipping. which brings up the problem of where to get boxes. they don't have boxes at the post office and i haven't found a shipping store like they had in mexico.
i've struck up a friendship with carlos, the nite watchman at this hotel. he helps me with my spanish and patiently answers my questions and puts up with me waking him up at all hours of the nite (need to ring the bell to get inside at any time of the day). i'm thinking about asking him to be my shipping guy, he works 6 nites a week at the hotel and i can't imagine that he makes any money at all. i bet he'd get boxes and tape and take my stuff to the post office for $10. even $20, totally worth it to me. he'll be here back here in a few hours so i'll run it past him. and maybe its cheaper for a local to mail things to the us. could be worth every penny if shipping is half price.
now shopping is done, lunch has been eaten (had a crazy good veggie burger on a toasted wheat bagel with guacamole, lettuce and tomato), and its about to rain. thinkin its time for homework and some spanish tv. wish i could get the browns game here.
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| so much stuff |
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