Friday, January 30, 2009

Exercising and Wedding Recap

Greg and I recently started exercising regulary again. We have done it sparatically since we returned, but now we actually have a plan. See, it is a little difficult here because its not like you can just go out for a run when you feel like it (for safety reasons of course!) There are a couple of gyms in town, but they aren´t very conveniently located for us, nor do they offer hours that accomodate our schedule. So while we were home we bought an exercise series of 11 DVDs - each focuses on a different muscle group and several of the discs include various cardiovascular exercises, each about an hour in length. Well, apparently somehow ´word got out´around our apartments (there are 6) that we had started a fitness program and slowly but surely, our neighbors began asking if they could join us. Even a couple teachers, administrators, and students from the school (who do not exercise) requested to join in too. Happily we invited them to come and so far our record high for attendance has been 13 participants! Thankfully we have a little covered patio (for parking our non existent car) because once the group grew that big, we had to move things outside! Anyway, we are pretty excited to have a group of work out buddies and are really motivated to stick with it even more so since others are counting on us now!

So, I will give you a quick overview of the wedding we attended. We had a great time and enjoyed the experience! We headed out in the general direction of the church (not exactly sure where we were going, since there are no addresses) and luckily saw a truck with the bed full of people all dressed up. Kyle, Crystal, Greg, and I all got the notion that they must be heading to the wedding too, so we started following them. Fortunately, just as we suspected, about 7 to 8 minutes later, we were there! Not sure if we would have found the place on our own, but thanks to the truck, we made it! As to be expected, the ceremony started about 25 minutes late (Honduras time as we say!) and lasted about an hour and a half finishing at approximately 9pm. You would have thought the bride and groom were the most famous couple in Honduras by the way guests were snapping photos of them. It was truly like the Honduras paparazzi as guest continued to stand up and move extremely close to the couple to take pictures throughout the entire service. Greg was trying to be respectful and keep his distance while taking photos, which resulted in have at least one other photographer in every shot he took. I don´t think he got one photo of just the couple because guests were literally in the bride and groom´s personal space the whole time! It was pretty funny! So after the wedding, we were starved! We weren´t sure what time the reception would actually start or if and what they would be serving for dinner, so we made a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way back into town. We filled our bellies then went to the reception. It was decorated nicely and each table had soda, beans, cheese, and chips on them for appetizers. Around 10:00pm they began serving dinner. At 11:00pm the bride and groom shared their first dance then opened the dance floor up to all the guests. By this point, Greg and I (and Kyle and Crystal too) were all so tired that we were ready for bed! We stuck around until 11:30pm, hoping they would cut the cake, but it didn´t look like it was going to happen anytime soon. We heard that weddings here normally go on until 2 or 3am, and we just weren´t up for the all-nighter! We did enjoy our first Honduran wedding, but I think we prefer an earlier start!

2 comments:

tkinzer said...

PLEASE include pictures of your work out session on the blog!!! I just HAVE to see!

Cindy in California said...

I enjoy reading your blog. I can't remember how I originally found it but I love to read blogs about Honduras.

Last summer I was the maid of honor (madrina) in a wedding in Tegus. Since I was the first member of the bridal party to enter the church I remember thinking somehow I was in Hollywood and the poparatizzi was there! And the extreme photography continued throughout the ceremony. During the vows there were at least eight people surrounding the bride and groom with cameras. When I look back at some of the videos that are on my camera I can't believe it. (Someone had my camera).

The ceremony was supposed to start at 6:30 p.m. and started around 7:00 p.m. (We actually left for the church from the brides house about 6:40 p.m.) The reception probably started around 9:00 p.m. and I got home around 2:00 a.m. exhausted!!

Definately not what we're used to in the US but a fun, fun experience.

I was surprised by how much was similiar...bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, ring bearers, the vows (from what I could understand), exchange of rings, the cake, decorations and so on. The processional was the song that is often the recessional in the US and the recessional was what we commonly think of as "Here Comes the Bride".

Thanks for sharing your experiences.