Birthday in Guatemala!

  In the morning me, Becca, Lauren, Rachel, and Jaimie hiked up to Cerro de la Cruz. The hike was beautiful, and somewhat fast because we had to be back for breakfast at 7 am. It was right around sunrise and the sun illuminated the volcano in front of us making the morning even more special. 

   After returning from our hike and eating breakfast, we went to volunteer at the dream center. I was with a group of fourth grade kids. They asked me questions if I had a mom and dad and where I was from. At recess, one of the little boys that was in the classroom that I volunteered in taught me how to make a paper airplane step by step. Every fold of the paper he would check, and then help correct it if it was wrong. I have never had such a functional flying airplane in my life. 

      Returning to our posidita, I got the nicest surprise from our hotel staff. They came into my room singing happy birthday in Spanish. In addition to singing, they brought a tres leche cake with "happy birthday" written on the plate in chocolate, a candle, roses,and a frog piñata.

     After that, we went and got supplies at the store to make posters in English for each of the 8 classrooms. On the way back from the store, my friend and I got popsicles that were yogurt and fruit. There were large chunks of fruit randomly placed in the yogurt. They were recommended to us the first day we got here by our tour guide from Maximo Nivel.

    Then after we had our daily Spanish classes, we came back and made the posters and little books for the project the next day. The project was to teach children useful phrases in English.

    We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner, then went to try to get ice cream but most places were closes. We did go into a McDonald's which was huge and really nice. There was a huge courtyard in the back that had a fountain. There was also a separate part of McDonalds that sold really good cakes.

 Overall it was the best way to spend my 20th birthday in another country. I was surrounded by friends, and only good memories for the day.