iHola! I´ve been in San Pedro, Guatemala for a week now, learning Spanish for 5 hours a day, then going home for meals and chit chat with my Guatemala family (and Swedish-Iranian ´brother´), so it seems the right time to send a few notes on learning espanol. 1. In Mexico, of course, the currency is the peso. The Q on Guatemalan price tags does not stand for queso. Queso means cheese. 2. Be prepared for your first day of class - brush up on enough vocab to fill five hours with conversation about politics, economics, immigration, emigration, discrimination, and others ics [View Full Entry]

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"An Israeli, an Aussie, a Kiwi, a Swiss, a Brit and a German walk into a bar. Israeli says to the Aussie..." Since I last wrote, I´ve been on and off travelling with the same group of people. It´s been mountains, canyons (not kenyans), jungles (eerily like an episode of the Mighty Boosh), monkeys, snakes, iguanas, jet boats, beaches (Pacific and Carribbean), buses, 80s parties, ruins.... I´m currently in Tulum, on the Yucatan peninsula. Tomorrow morning I´m going to hightail it outta ole Mexico into Belize or Guatemala. Not sure which yet, it will depend on the buses. Belize is a [View Full Entry]

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Mexico City: one of the largest cities in the world. Guidebook? Who needs a guidebook? Map schmap. Sans guidebook, I managed to see prehispanic pyramids, hispanic castles, modern art, museums, parks (with real live squirrels!), plazas etc etc. All bueno. But speaking of guides, the best sight I saw was on the subway. There were three blind people all walking in a row, sticks busily tapping the ground, hands on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Truly a case of the blind leading the blind. On that note, here's a few things that a guidebook might have been [View Full Entry]

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First up, a huge thanks to Nikki and Lance for their amazing hospitality. I'm going to post the Sherman Oaks Hostel on the Lonely Planet Thorntree so that all future visitors to LA can stay there. The rates are muy reasonable. Although my hosts weren't quite cool enough to take me to the Viper Room or Chateau Marmont, they did manage to zip me around most of LA, including a cruise along the Pacific Coast Highway (Santa Monica to Malibu, Zuma etc ) by porsche. It's pretty hard to beat that. And I can now drop names like NoHo and WeHo [View Full Entry]

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