Tiempo libre

I finally have some free time and the internet is working well (although it won't let me upload any pictures). So, now I can sit and think about everything that has happened in the past two weeks.

I have finished a week of classes, which consists of five hours of spanish a day. About two hours or so is grammar, half an hour for break, and then another hour and a half or so of tallers, about culture and history. Classes have been okay. I tested into upper intermediate, mainly because my conversation level isn't very high. I did great on the grammar though. This means that classes are going kind of slowly. We aren't really doing that much conversation so I already feel like I know everything we're going over grammar-wise. The culture classes have also been kind of slow. We kind of just do busy work, like reading a sheet on a person and then summarizing it for the rest of the class. I talked to the director about it, which was kind of frustrating because she told me that if I moved up, there would be seven people in the class which would be too much. The frustrating part was that she had just let someone else move up a level the day before. The good thing is that the class (minus the teachers) talked about how things were going and we all feel that the pace is kind of slow and that we need more conversation. We wrote this on our evaluations so things might change next week.

Class was kind of fun on Friday. We had an hour of games that people play in Ecuador. My group did a race with an egg on a spoon in your mouth. Another group did this thing with London Bridge mixed with tug-of-war. Yet another group had a four and three leg race. Another game was dancing with a tomato in between forheads. It was pretty fun and more bonding for the group.

Taking the bus to and from school has been pretty easy. I walk about fifteen minutes to reach my bus stop at the Triangulo in San Rafael, which is a nice walk every day. Then only $.20 will get me home. It's always pretty cloudly on my walk home, but a few days ago I got a really clear view of Cotopaxi, which is spectacular. The way I saw it, it was a giant snow peak coming up from the clouds. Usually clouds cover the entire mountain, but it's still cool to know that there is a volcano there, right under the clouds somewhat close to where I'm living. I just hope it doesn't blow because apparently, it would cover the whole valley.

I've also found out that t.v. programs kind of start on "Ecuador Time," which means that they don't quite start when they're scheduled, but normally a little after. Ecuador time means that when you're invited to a party, you show up about half an hour to an hour after the time you're told. I have yet to experience this as classes don't go by Ecaudor time; they start at 8:00 sharp, and I usually get there at 7:30 because my host mother drops me off on the way to work.

We did have a dinner party here for friend of my host family who are moving to the U.S. to be near their two children who had already moved there. They were really friendly. The dad knew English, and although I thought it was pretty good and could understand him, he kept insisting that I call his english "real hamburger" which I really don't understand, but I think it's supposed to mean that it was really bad. We ate some strange but pretty good food: a "pear" that was actually pear skin around potato and ham, a piece of what I thought was bread but was actually meat with vegetables and hard-boiled egg inside of it, chicken and bacon on toothpicks, and a flan that didn't really have any sugar in it.

I bought a cell phone. It tooks two failed attempts (they only sell phones a few hours a day) and today, the phone almost didn't work, but the woman assured me (I think) in spanish that it would work. It cost about $55 and I have to pay more for minutes, but it was one of the cheapest ones. We'll see if it works.

I'm so glad I'm not a vegetarian any more, not because I like meat (I still don't really like it) but because here, "vegetarian" just means that one doesn't eat beef and/or pork. I was served "vegetarian" vegetable soup on Friday that was definately chicken broth with big hunks of chicken in it. I'm also learning that it's just so hard to communicate in spanish at times. It takes so much concentration to hear what people are saying, especially if they are not talking loudly. This becomes more challenging as I'm trying to watch t.v. and keep up a conversation at the sametime. Things get pretty interesting. Well, it's getting late and I think I have an early morning tomorrow: off to visit the historic center with my host mom. It should be good. Until next time, Chao!