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Published: August 24th 2007
Morning with Agua Volcano
From outside our bedroom doorFriday was a pretty fun day for all of us. The stage was actually set the day before.
This being the rainy season, yesterday (Thursday 8/16) we got caught in a rainstorm and took refuge in the lovely Projecto Cultural El Sitio to sit out the downpour. This took us about 10 minutes, and I got a shot of some rain coming down the spouts. The nice thing about this weather is that despite the rain, the temperature doesn't change much. You go through the whole day in shirtsleeves and never consider yourself too hot or too cold. And they consider this the bad weather season! (These people should not visit Seattle).
So after a grey rainy day, it was lovely to awake to glorious clear sunshine, with a great view of Agua volcano. (see picture). After getting the kids off to school, Steve and I started our first day of language school at the Centro Linguistica Maya (CLM). This school was recommended to us by Hugo, who taught there for 8 years before starting his current adventure travel business. There are some 75 language schools in this town, but evidently this one has been around for many years.
Refuge from the rain
Maybe you can see the water pouring down the spout and chain at Proyecto Cultural de Sitio (We also heard that Christian Spanish Academy is also good. Today we happened to walk by it for the first time and it is definitely the fancy-pants school in town)
The format is pretty standard - an immersion where you have a personal teacher with whom you sit down at little tables sprinkled throughout the building and talk with (Spanish only) for anywhere from 4 - 7 hours per day. Per day! Steve and I chose the "slacker" level of 4 hours per day, 5 days a week, and let me tell you, this stuff fills your head!
My teacher's name is Veronica and she is a hoot. She has a quick smile and a good sense of humor, and likes to tell me dirty jokes and school gossip which I find myself following along quite well. (Well
that's a little embarassing!) She is ramping me up pretty quickly, and I think somebody forgot to tell her I've only had 3 weeks of Spanish in my whole life and we're reading out of the second year college textbook. I sit and nod a lot. Steve has a better command of the language than I do, and his teacher
Veronica, my Spanish teacher
This is the setup for Spanish class: a little table, a teacher, and a lot of talking. is talking all about his history and society and apparently does not share any dirty jokes.
At noon, when class ended, Steve and I met each other in the lobby and could hardly speak to each other. We were completely shell-shocked and walked out of the school blinking from the sunshine and stumbling towards lunch. A
nice thing about Antigua is its amazing number of lovely restaurants which serve good food at good prices. We walked into this one in the photo and managed to get ourselves through lunch without our heads imploding.
When the kids came home from school, Lucas informed us he was invited to a classmate's birthday party at 4pm in the city's Central Park (Parque Central). A social invitation, a first! We were all so excited!
We walked with Lucas to the park and did not immediately see his friends. After a slightly tense wait and through the MAGIC OF WORKING CELL PHONES, he found his friends and dismissed us for a couple of hours. (The birthday party was at...McDonalds).
It was a perfect Friday late afternoon, with the sun golden and people walking about for the beginning of the weekend. Steve,
Grace and I spent the next couple of hours walking around town, peeking into some luscious shops and generally enjoying the vibe of the day. By around 6pm Grace was starving (this country is giving her a ravenous appetite) so we found a cute little pizza place (again, inside a garden courtyard) for our dinner. Lucas eventually caught up with us (cell phones!) and we all walked home in the glow of the day and the light of the Arch (see picture).
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Monica
non-member comment
What a great way to learn Spanish!
Love this blog. It's a really fun way to keep up with you guys. -- Monica