Harry Potter

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday) I went to my first Guatemalan movie theater. Hannah, Sarah, Sarita, Harim, and I went to see Harry Potter. Xela has a large mall operated by Walmart, Hyper (eeper). They have a small movie theater showing four current US movies. To arrive at the mall, we took a microbus from the middle of town for about 15 minutes with all the stops. The mall itself is enormous. We walked down a long corridor of clothing, shoes, electronic, and food stores. I did not visit Walmart but I want to go back soon to pick up some familiar snack foods.

The movie theater was right in the middle of the mall. My ticket cost 25Q ($3) and I got a manageable bucket of popcorn and small soda combo for 30Q ($4). The popcorn tasted like movie popcorn with butter – yummy! The actual theater where Harry Potter played was quite dark and had as many rows of chairs as possible. They did not recline but the bottom (fold down part) was pretty loose. Needless to say, after the epic, my bum was sore. The room was also ridiculously cold. I know in my family we usually bring jackets to the movies because it is cold but here I wish I had two – freezing. The previews were in English with Spanish subtitles, which did not quite match the English. The movie was in Spanish. Luckily, I remembered the basis for the story and there were lots of action sequences. I think I understood fifty percent of the words but I will definitely need to re-watch in English at home.

Another minor detail: every movie has an intermission for 10 minutes. They turn the lights on, stop the movie, and a handful of people get snacks or use the bathroom. This is a good idea in theory but they interrupted the movie at the climax of an action sequence.

After the movie, we stopped by a delicious bakery. They sell whole wheat bread (a lot of our group is getting tired of the endless flow of white bread), pastries, pies, and snacks. I bought a sourdough roll for the ride home and chocolate crinkle cookies for post-dinner desserts this week. I was so excited for a taste of home. The cookies reminded me of walks to Market Hall with the infamous Kathryn Williams for snacks and stress relief.