The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good...
* I’ll go ahead and state the obvious first. I really like having a maid/nanny five days a week.
* I like the fact that my milk doesn’t expire until September. Ultra High Temperature pasteurization is cool. The only reason I can figure as to why you can’t buy milk like this in the US is because Americans think it’s creepy to buy warm milk on the shelf. It’s not (creepy, that is) and it sure does prevent the milk-going-bad problem.
* I like that my cookies come packaged within the package. At first I thought this was such a waste of packaging, but then I realized that when you live in a country where it rains six months out of the year, the extra packaging is necessary or things go stale fast. An added bonus is that it limits my cookie consumption at each sitting.
* I enjoy hanging my clothes on the clothes line to dry in the sun. There’s just something about it that feels so warm and good. Whenever we are back in the US, I want a clothes line in my backyard!
* I like sunshine and shorts in January.

The Bad...
* I’ll go ahead and state the obvious first. I miss my family and friends. While we’ve been SO blessed to have visitors while we’ve been here, not everyone can just come on down to Guatemala for the weekend, ya know?
* Skype is great, but it’s not always reliable.
* Have I mentioned before that the cobble-stoned streets are annoying? They are. Thanks to the cobblestones, our most recent car problem is that our “stabilizer” broke (whatever that is, but “stabilizing” sounds important…).
* I do not like the market experience. It’s crowded, dirty, and very anxiety-inducing for me, but necessary if we want to eat produce. I also don’t like Bodegona, which is the local answer to a grocery store. I’ve actually had day dreams about hugging the baskets and produce and groceries at HEB and then stretching my arms wide in the aisles just because I can.
* Sometimes it’s weird to have so much sunshine and shorts in January.

The Ugly...
* Ugly? I live in Antigua, Guatemala. There's really no such thing there.