whoa dude

i've never experienced the world with an ipod before. never lived the ilife, done the ibike, or ridden on an itrain. i remember being in middle school and making my own mixtapes to listen to before i had a discman, then getting a coveted discman, and then losing interest in listening to music all the time.

3 weeks without tunes would be a bit much to handle, though. fortunately mr. ginsbug has lent me his ipod, and thus cut my packing supplies in half by eliminating a metric butt ton of cd-rs.

moral of the story, anyway, is that the first song the ipod picked on shuffle was ´´untitled song for latin america´´ by the minutemen. way to go, steve jobs!

at this point, i was hoping i'd be at a hostel, meeting more grizzled and veteran travelers, and seeing what guatemala city was like on a friday night. unfortunately, the hostel was full, so i'm at a really nice woman and her son's house all by my lonesome. if i was feeling a bit less tired, i'd probably ask them for somewhere to go, but i don't think i have the mental energy to eke by on my minimal spanish without one other ally in crime.

my minimal encounter with guatemalan people, so far, has me pretty stoked, though. the airport was way different than sky harbor. the people working there looked more or less just as bored, but were incredibly helpful and friendly, and patient with the language barrier.

to end with another musical footnote, the folks who picked me up at the airport are apparently fans of the charlie daniels band, u2, and queen. it's funny how my first impulse was to think ´´they like american music´´ when only 1 of those bands is from america. go team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

pretty interesting how such radical geographical relocation can take place with such little fanfare.