McBerkoBlog

 Highlights from our second week in Antigua: Santo Domingo del Cerro museums and zip line course ChocoMuseo chocolate class Pool time with friends More great food Santo Domingo del Cerro We visited this cool art museum last Saturday, a series of small galleries in separate buildings surrounded by beautiful gardens, sculptures, and mosaics, all on the top of a hill overlooking the city. We learned about Efrain Recinos, "the Picasso of Guatemala", who created most of the work permanently exhibited here.  Side note: Are you getting sick of the iMovie "Magic Movies" yet? I am, but not so much so that I'm willing to spend the time to edit stuff together on my own. ;)  After we explored the grounds and galleries, we found the zip line course. We did the hour-long short course of 8 zip lines and 2 hanging bridges. Zadie said it was scary at first, but then "super fun after the first one". I was a little surprised both a) that she made it through the course (...

Some highlights from our first week in Antigua: 1. El Cerro de la Cruz From one edge of downtown, we hiked up a steep but relatively short paved path to El Cerro de la Cruz ("the hill of the cross"), and were rewarded with great views of downtown and the surrounding mountains and volcanos. Well, almost great views of the volcanos - that big cloud behind the cross is covering the top of one volcano. 2. Iglesia y Convento de la Merced We tried to see this church last Saturday, but the church itself was closed for a morning mass. The attached former convent was open, however, and we practically had it to ourselves. A series of earthquakes mostly destroyed it in the 1700s. The girls and I returned yesterday to check out the church's mosaics. 3. Valhalla Macadamia Nut Farm We drove 15-20 mins outside Antigua to a nearby organic macadamia nut farm, where we took a short free tour to learn about the farm and their mission to provide free trees to rural farmers. The girls got to ...

We've never stayed away from home so long before, so wanted to find a place where we'd be comfortable and the girls would be happy for a month. Braver folks might book two nights in a hotel, then upon arrival, immediately meet with a real estate agent to tour and lease a place for the month. While that would have been cheaper (and stressful!), we booked through AirBnB for ease of use and peace of mind, filtering for places with a pool and separate rooms for the girls. So far, we're happy! We're a half mile from the central plaza and markets, and basically the entire town is within walking distance. Here's a photo compilation overview: I'm so glad we booked a place with outdoor activities. Zadie LOVES the trampoline, jumping multiple times a day. She even met a friend around her age one day, though it's usually empty. There are two pools, one shallow and one deep, but as we expected, neither is heated and they are pretty chilly since the air temp has been 60-...

 Zadie woke up early this morning and wrote in her journal about Guatemala:     "Gwotumolu is cool and osum. A litl uv both." Before we get to why, I'll talk about our travel here. Stories about the actual mechanics of travel are inevitably boring (delayed for some reason or another, spoiler alert: we got there in the end), but I'll record it for posterity's sake anyway. I won't be offended if you skip reading this post. :)  Current COVID rules for Guatemala do not require fully vaccinated travelers to provide negative test results. All our American Airlines info agreed, but still wouldn't let me check in online unless I attested that I had negative test results in hand. We ended up going to the airport 3 hours early just in case we needed to get a rapid test, but they checked our vaccine cards and we got our boarding passes. Hooray!  RDU must have staffing shortages, because the majority of the restaurants were closed when we looked for dinner. We ate, pl...

A week out from our month-long trip, the question we've gotten most so far is "Why Guatemala?" There are many reasons we chose to visit Antigua, Guatemala after seriously looking at several other places that fit our criteria (Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Columbia, Puerto Rico). Short list of most important factors: time zone/"workability", language, "walkability", activities, weather, and cost. Longer answer: Time Zone/Work Bill will be working remotely much of the time we're there. His supervisor doesn't care where he's physically working since their team is fully remote, but joining meetings would be difficult if we were outside of the Americas. We focused our search on Central and South America and referenced "best places for digital nomads" lists for ideas. Guatemala uses the equivalent of US Mountain Time, and is supposed to have reasonably reliable and fast internet. Language We previously decided that we should learn Span...

I was recently talking with my sister-in-law about our family's upcoming trip to Guatemala, and she asked if we'd be blogging about it. Great idea, Patty! I always intend to journal when traveling, but never do as much as I'd like. Hiding those journals away in a drawer once I get home also isn't quite the great memorial I had in mind. Will bringing back the McBerkoblog be an easier way to keep notes and pictures about our trip? Time shall tell. In the meantime, I'm just glad to find that I can still log in and post. :) 

Bill took today off work, and blew my mind. When I left this morning, the stove was in the entryway. I came home to find our stove in place and working. While I was playing with all the knobs and seeing how high a quick boil gas flame goes (answer: pretty darn high), I noticed a strange noise. It was the dishwasher. A running dishwasher!! Do you understand how fabulous that is?! It has been 6 months since I've heard that noise. And that meant... water is on throughout the kitchen. We have a sink! In the kitchen! A big one! Unlike the little pedestal sink in the downstairs bath, it's big enough to wash dishes in. Of course, screw washing dishes by hand - we have a working dishwasher! Woohoo! If that all wasn't enough, Bill also installed the under- and over-cabinet LED light strips. Nice!! We still have plenty to do here, including installing the tile backsplash, adding baseboards, and trimming out the doors. Cabinet installer also has a few tasks - filling that hole next to...

When we first started designing the kitchen, we figured carrera countertops had too high a risk of staining (especially with us), granite would be too shiny and new looking for our 100-yr old house, but soapstone would be out of reach. Surprisingly, it wasn't much more expensive than granite. Going to the stone yard to pick out our slabs was fun, but made me VERY glad we were not selecting granite. A pro and con of soapstone is that there were only a few types to choose from. It would have taken forever to choose one granite out of hundreds, but one of four soapstone slabs is a much easier choice. Fortunately, we found one that was exactly what I was hoping for - charcoal, no green, nice white veining, perfect leathery texture. Love it! Once installed, step 2 - figuring out how to treat them. Apparently soapstone won't stain, but will darken with use. To keep them from aging unevenly and to get the darker color we wanted, you can rub mineral oil into the countertops. We'd h...

Granted, I'm a bit late on the post, but to record some history, I'll backtrack. Bill and I took a week off work in mid-Sept to finish up a few key projects before the cabinets were professionally installed. The pale yellow beadboard ceiling took 2.5 days to install, way more than we thought. The many recessed lights are great when working in the kitchen, except when cutting beadboard to fit around each. We went through 3 or 4 different yellows for the ceiling before we were happy. We were smart enough to paint it on the ground, at least. The wall color was just as bad - this is gray #3. The tile, a honed carrera marble, took the rest of the week to install. We realized late that the tile company was 60 sq ft short on our tile delivery, but thankfully, the laundry room could wait. At least we finished the floor before our cabinet install deadline. It was close, since our pattern meant that Bill had to cut every single tile for the accent pieces. Props to him for spending 3 days...

Ruth walked into these rooms when we got home today and said, "Wow! Pretty walls." So true, Ruth! Here's the current state of the kitchen. The old wall is gone, and new wall blocks off laundry room (french doors not yet installed). Fridge will go on the left where the sink used to be, and new sink will be located under the window on the right. Ceiling will have beadboard instead of drywall. Pre-insulation, same area: Looking the other direction. Stove will be in the center of this wall. City building inspector said, "Yup, that's insulation." By the end of the week, the drywallers will be 100% done. We can then start priming, hooking up lights and outlets, and moving on to floor tile. Cabinets get installed on 9/19!