{"id":557,"date":"2015-01-29T19:10:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T00:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2015-02-02T11:41:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T16:41:31","slug":"1292015-antigua-guatemala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/?p=557","title":{"rendered":"1\/29\/2015 Antigua, Guatemala"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve been having tons of fun here since our first day. I can’t remember what day we arrived on. The day after we arrived we found a lovely place for the right price. Since then we’re enjoying our practically private rooftop patio and finding delicious restaurants. On Tuesday we went on a walking tour. We learned, really just confirmed, that Antigua has little in common with the rest of Guatemala. It’s like San Marcos that way. We learned Guatemala is in the midst of modernization. We also learned a little about the 48 ruins here and saw two up close. They are gorgeous! Most weren’t torn down because of a number of reasons. We went into the old cathedral where the domes are gone. The cathedral is covered by UNESCO and can only be restored to confirmable original specs. Then we saw the Dominican Convent which was such a mess that UNESCO decided not to cover it. Somebody bought it and developed it incorporating the ruins. The site is 8 blocks long! It has a hotel, wedding chapel, three restaurants, three museums, and who knows what else. It has a huge ceiba tree and numerous gardens and fountains. We also stopped at the Jade Museum and learned of the Mayan extravagances of wearing 50 pound earrings.<\/p>\n

Jill was excited to make chocolate too, so we did a chocolate workshop at the Choco Museo. We learned about the history of it from the Mayans to Mr. Nestle. Nestle made the first milk chocolate, somebody named Sloane invented chocolate milk. We ground up some beans by mortar and pestle. That was hard, Jill did it fastest and got a free truffle for the effort. We made some cacao shell tea and some Mayan chocolate drink.<\/div>\n
Lastly we made our own chocolate treats that we’ve been munching for a couple days.<\/div>\n
\n
\"The<\/a>
The post earthquake cathedral. Much improved.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is the restored facade of the cathedral. One of the statue’s heads is original.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Replica<\/a>
Replica of an original fountain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"How<\/a>
How would you like a wedding here?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Some<\/a>
Some different representations of monkeys by Mayans and other artists.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mayan<\/a>
Mayan sculpture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This is a 400 pound plaster jaguar warrior. It was cut in half to move.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jill<\/a>
Jill froths some chocolate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jill<\/a>
Jill roasts some cacao beans so we can remove the shell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been having tons of fun here since our first day. I can’t remember what day we arrived on. The day after we arrived we found a lovely place for the right price. Since then we’re enjoying our practically private rooftop patio and finding delicious restaurants. On Tuesday we went on a walking tour. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-travel"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5a0LE-8Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatriateism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}