Pino Dulce, moving and El Salvador

Pino Dulce
The day after my last blog we went to Pino Dulce, a piece of land in the mountains 1.5 hours from Guatemala City. We drove through the hilly landscape all the way up and felt the air getting colder and colder and getting the clouds closer and closer until we were above the clouds and really needed our sweaters to stay warm. Once arrived we relaxed a bit, had some breakfast and then we went to the canopy cables. After 12 exciting canopy cables (see the pictures on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9812&id=226700492&l=418bd15192), we played some football against some of the locals and had lunch. After relaxing a bit more, it was time to leave for Guatemala again. We didn't do that much in the end, but we spent about 5 very relaxing hours there and we had a really good day together.

Training at work
Then we had another week of work/training. Alberto (my housemate) and I are together in one team with a lot of other new, young employees, so we're having a good time together. In the morning we read about the processes we will be responsible for in the future and the afternoon we get general presentations about accounting, the company and the software we use. Of course at time it is boring, but it is important to know all this before we go to Manchester, so we're still interested to learn all of it. Speaking of Manchester, we're trying to get tickets for the match of Manchester United against Vfl Wolfsburg, the second weekend I'm gonna visit Hasan and Mustafa and the fourth weekend my mother will come and visit me there, so enough nice things to look forward to!

Moving
After some talks with Ömer and Alberto we decided it would be a good idea to move out of our old house because of the location (the neighbourhood is pretty boring, except for that we're close to some of the other trainees) and the comfort (just two chairs and a table). So with help from some colleagues we made appointments to visit a number of houses and we saw some really good options. On Sunday morning we visited an apartment in zone 10 (zona viva, the "live zone") that really beat all our imaginations of what would be possible. It is next to the neighbourhood with all bars, it is completely furnished with new furniture and it has a great view over the city and the mountains and volcanoes behind it, as it is on the 14th floor. We immediately felt very comfortable and could imagine ourselves living there. So the next day we made an appointment with the house owner to discuss the terms of the contract and we closed the deal. That evening we went to sign the contract and to pay, but unfortunately the payment couldn't go through because we could make only limited withdrawals with our credit card. So we had to sleep one more night in the old apartment, but the next day it really happened and we have lived in our new apartment for some days now and we're really happy to live in this penthouse. It is a good place to receive guests and we can really relax after and before work, which are important aspects too.

El Salvador
This weekend it was finally time for the trip to El Salvador, after it had been postponed twice already. On Saturday morning at 10.30 we left with 19 people in a van for El Salvador. After a trip of about 3 hours we arrived at the all-in beach resort Decameron at the pacific coast. After having put our stuff in the rooms, we had some lunch (of course scooping as much as possible on our plates) and then went to the beach to swim in the ocean and play volleyball on the beach. Afterwards we swam in the swimming pool, watched Brasil-Argentina in our room, had dinner (of disappointing quality) and finally we went to the disco. That was also of disappointing level, so even though we were finally at a place that doesn't close at 1am, we voluntarily left at 1am to sleep. The following morning I went to the reception to make a reservation for a real massage and then had breakfast with the others, again taking many different types of food on 2 plates. Usually I don't eat much for breakfast, but as you could expect, the all-in concept of the hotel really encourages you to take a lot of food on your plate. Fortunately it was pretty healthy, but it wouldn't be good to eat like that every day. After the breakfast we chilled in the swimming pool and I had my massage, which was really great. Afterwards I felt completely relaxed, as if I had slept for a week, so that was really good. Then we relaxed some more and we had the check out already. Fortunately we could still have lunch (same style) after checking out, so we could take our time. After that, we left with the van and visited a beach in the neighbourhood. The nice thing there was there there were no rocks to protect the beach, so there were some good waves. On top of that the water was of a perfect temperature, so I really enjoyed it, much better than the North Sea. The beach was also really nice, there were a lot of locals there and with the palm trees and the wooden houses there was a really nice atmosphere. Also the village was really nice, to me it looked like a typical Caribbean village. After another hour we continued our trip back home and around 9pm we were back at home, in our penthouse. So that was another relaxing weekend without much to do, the resort was slightly disappointing, but the timing was good and least I know now how it is to go to such a place and I know that for the future I can skip this kind of places.

For the coming days there are not that many plans, but I'm sure we'll go out a few times and the coming weekend we're probably going to the beach with a colleague and some of his friends, so that's gonna be another relaxing but entertaining weekend.

Saludos de Guatemala!