On May 19, we left kind of late at night from the SLC airport (so that's why its not day 1). I was with my mom, grandma, and grandpa. I had a purple luggage set and I was so ready and excited to go! I love airplanes and I was psyched to get to Guatemala!!!
From SLC we went to Long Beach and had kind of a long layover (which was NOT fun because the Long Beach airport is tiny!). We ate sandwiches that were way too expensive and then just had to wait. Since we were flying standby (because my aunt was able to get us buddy passes from Jet Blue--thanks Zeebee!) we were worried about getting on the flight and thought we might not get on. Thankfully, we got on....however I ended up sitting in between two fat old men (one of which was eating some digusting sandwich with everything on it and spilled his sprite on me! :P) but I watched TV, so I guess it was all good.
From Long Beach, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the morning. Here, the problems began.... When we went up to check in our luggage, we had to show our passports. My mom pulled them out and gave them to the guy when he was like, "Um, who's this man?" And there was a picture of my dad on the passport, instead of my mom. It turns out my mom had accidentally grabbed my dad's passport instead of hers. We had no idea what to do, but my grandparents and I checked in our stuff and then went to discuss. My mom called my dad and had him send the passport express mail so it would arrive the next day.
Thank goodness my dad's brother lives in Miami, because he was able to pick her up so she wouldn't need to stay in the airport all night. My mom had to buy another ticket and was able to make it to Guatemala the next day (May 22).
As for my grandparents and me, we had to continue on. We made it into Guatemala City later that day and the excitement started!!!! We picked up our rental car (which was supposedly a minivan...but it was too small to be an actual one) and then went around to an outdoor mall place and to my great uncle, Chepe's, house, where he lives with his family. I was so tired I fell asleep on their couch and then we were finally able to go to our hotel, which was called "Quality Service" (really funny because it was in english in a Spanish country).
On the 21st, we were able to pick up my mom, my uncle Derick, and cousin Alex. We visited my great uncle's family (AGAIN...you'll notice this was a regular pattern each day), and then went to pick up my mom. While waiting to pick up Derick and Alex, we went to "El Centro" and went inside this huge Catholic church. After that, we were able to go pick up Derick and Alex and then went to the hotel and slept... :)
