Monday, June 28, 2010

Honduras - June 16th

This was the view outside of our hotel window when we woke up in Copan. So green and pretty.
And this was the pool at the hotel. None of us actually went swimming here though.
This truck was filled with mangos in the same spot everyday. This is right near the "central park" of Copan.
Honduras played in the World Cup at 5:30am this morning. Everyone we talked to was up early to watch it, and I would say 70% of the people that I saw throughout the day were wearing Honduras soccer shirts.
Kyle and mom walking to the ruins. Copan is famous for the Mayan Ruins so that is what we did on our first day (morning) in Copan. We had our own personal tour guide, Mauricio. He was VERY long winded, so our tour lasted about 3 hours. He had been working at the ruins since he was 13, and he was in his 40s now.



I think these were called altar tables. All of the shapes on the top and sides had some kind of relevance.





This is Mauricio.


One of the kings was named 18 Rabbit. I think this sculpture had something to do with him.
This is where they be-headed people. They would play a certain kind of game, and at the end of the game the best player would be be-headed. That is because the "gods" wanted to best. If I was in the game, I would just play really bad to avoid being be-headed.
This is back in the town of Copan. In every town we were in, there were always kids on the side of the streets selling fruit.
In the afternoon, our plan was to do a canopy tour (zip line). We went to the place that does the tours, and they told us that they had not done any tours that day because the river next to the road to get to the zip line overflowed the night before due to all the rain. They thought maybe the road was re-opened since it was now about 2pm and the gal said that she would call someone to check. The person she talked to said that yes, the road was opened and we could do the canopy tour. So, these 3 guys came to pick us up and we piled in to the back of the pick-up truck. We started making our way up the hill, and the sky started getting darker. Also, while the river was not flooding the road at the moment, it looked like it was going to flood the road if it started raining again. This was just a dirt road too - no pavement. A few minutes later the lightening started, and that is when we decided that it probably wasn't a good idea to be strapped to a metal line. So, we turned back around and headed into town.
This is what the sky looked like when we got back to town.
We stopped and had an afternoon tea/coffee on this patio.
On our walk back to the hotel, these kids tried to sell dad some mangos. He had no idea what they were saying, and they had no idea what he was saying.
We made it back to our hotel, but not before the rain started.
It started raining around 4ish, so we just hung out at the hotel for a couple of hours before dinner. I went outside with a book, and this was my view while reading. Such a relaxing couple of hours listening to the rain and reading a mindless book.
Once the rain kind of lightened up, we went to dinner and that will be in the next post.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Honduras - June 15th

After months of planning this trip, the day finally arrived to fly to Honduras. It was much cheaper to fly from NYC to San Pedro Sula (Honduras), so mom and dad flew to NYC on Saturday and then flew to Honduras with me from NYC. Kellyn and Coby couldn't make this trip as Coby doesn't have vacation yet with his new job.

Our flight left La Guardia at 7am, and we flew to Miami. We then flew from Miami to San Pedro Sula. This is a view of the Caribbean from the plane.
Kyle met us at the airport and he already had a cab driver waiting for us. We all piled in to a little Mazda Protege - Kyle in the front since he could communicate with the driver and mom, dad and I in the back. We were going to the bus terminal to catch a bus to our stop for the first 3 nights, Copan.

We took the Hedman Alas bus to Copan. It was about a 3 hours bus ride from San Pedro Sula. This was probably the most expensive bus, at $15 per person. But that meant that it had air conditioning, and it did not make stops along the way.
Everyone riding in luxury. I think we were all pleased with this bus after hearing stories from Kyle about the "chicken buses" in Honduras. It was also nice to be on this bus with all the windy roads to get to Copan.
When we arrived in Copan it was pouring. Kyle talked to the moto taxi drivers, and negotiated a fare to get us to our hotel. We all piled into the taxi (illegally, as only the driver should be sitting in the front seat) and drove to the hotel. The little moto taxi didn't really keep us all dry, as you can tell by my mom's sweatshirt.
This was our hotel room in Copan - it was nicer than I thought it would be.
We went to dinner at Twisted Tanya's for our first night. This was my favorite restaurant on the entire trip. The guy who owns it is from Brooklyn, NY, so it was a pretty "American" restaurant which I appreciated.

After dinner we just went to bed after our long day of traveling.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Manhattan Walk

After doing this back in 2006, I really wanted to walk the island again. It was supposed to be a UES TGC event, but not too many people showed up. Jeff and I were the only ones who walked the entire 13.1 miles. A few people met us throughout the day.

We took the 1 train to 225th Street in the Bronx and crossed the bridge to Manhattan. We walked along 10th Avenue, then to Amsterdam, headed east to Central Park at 110th Street, walked through the park, exited on 5th Avenue and walked along 5th until Broadway crossed it, then took Broadway to Battery Park. We started at 8am and finished at about 2pm, but our time included kind of meandering through Central Park.

This is at the reservoir in Central Park - we were about halfway here.
At Belvedere Castle - Jon House had joined us at this point.
Stopping at Jamba Juice.
Battery Park!
Next time we decided we are going to go there and back!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Happy New Year

This is FINALLY my last "catch-up" post. I was back in NYC for New Years Eve, and all my TGC friends and I went to a fundraiser event. It was held at The Parlor, which is on the Upper West Side. I wore a skirt with no tights, so it was a little cold getting there. Fortunately The Parlor was at 86th and Broadway, so I could just take the M86 crosstown. My legs/feet were still freezing though by the time I got home.

This is my friend Lindsay and I

Jessica Joy and I

Dancing Queens - I think we were on the dance floor from about 11pm to 3am. I haven't danced that much since my college days.
Lori, Renee and I


Such a fun night!!! Probably my best NYE in a long time.