Guatemala!
Greetings friends!
I am currently spending a week and a half in Antigua, Guatemala to learn Spanish along with others from Teachers College. We're at the Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua, where we each have our own personal instructor (in most cases "una maestra", since they're mostly female). Our hotel is La Casa Santo Domingo, which is normally really freaking expensive, but since Professor Vogeli knows the old owners of the hotel, and he's always been coming here (for like 30 years) with trips, he gets a deal from the hotel. We get rooms in this "5 star" hotel for just $73 a night, shared between 2. Normally it's somewhere around $150-250 a night.
The first day, Dr. Vogeli held a really nice dinner for us in the hotel, after which we would never eat so well in Guatemala, since it'd be way expensive. Most food here is pretty tasty, but the question is of the quality and so you have to be careful. As I'll explain later, this is of utmost importance to your health.
We arrived New Year's Day in the afternoon, and it was then that I met a french girl from Lyon named Mariella, who shared our shuttle to Antigua from Guatemala City. She's really nice, and I had dinner with her a couple nights ago. She's doing some sort of internship abroad thing for school for about 3 months here and lives in a house with a family who houses a bunch of students.
January 2nd, we started classes - 6 hours a day, from 8-12, then lunch, and again from 2-4. However, since I'm leaving a little early to go to Mystery Hunt at MIT (yay!!) I have to do 7 hours most days and 8 a couple days. The first day, they had me take a test, and I passed into level "B" (one above the most beginner) but my teacher insisted on giving me A anyway. We spent the day at that, but when I found that she didn't think I could skip to B the next day, I talked to the director (Monica de Caceres) who had me change teachers for the next day, and start on level B. Now, my teacher is Anabella Ponce Fuentes, and she's very good. She just turned 35 on Wednesday, and has 2 young children. I'm gonna post pictures tomorrow along with some of my trip to the volcano tomorrow!!
I also have to write a lot more about stuff in school after the first day, but this is it for now. The next post is about an experience I never wish for any of you...
I am currently spending a week and a half in Antigua, Guatemala to learn Spanish along with others from Teachers College. We're at the Christian Spanish Academy in Antigua, where we each have our own personal instructor (in most cases "una maestra", since they're mostly female). Our hotel is La Casa Santo Domingo, which is normally really freaking expensive, but since Professor Vogeli knows the old owners of the hotel, and he's always been coming here (for like 30 years) with trips, he gets a deal from the hotel. We get rooms in this "5 star" hotel for just $73 a night, shared between 2. Normally it's somewhere around $150-250 a night.
The first day, Dr. Vogeli held a really nice dinner for us in the hotel, after which we would never eat so well in Guatemala, since it'd be way expensive. Most food here is pretty tasty, but the question is of the quality and so you have to be careful. As I'll explain later, this is of utmost importance to your health.
We arrived New Year's Day in the afternoon, and it was then that I met a french girl from Lyon named Mariella, who shared our shuttle to Antigua from Guatemala City. She's really nice, and I had dinner with her a couple nights ago. She's doing some sort of internship abroad thing for school for about 3 months here and lives in a house with a family who houses a bunch of students.
January 2nd, we started classes - 6 hours a day, from 8-12, then lunch, and again from 2-4. However, since I'm leaving a little early to go to Mystery Hunt at MIT (yay!!) I have to do 7 hours most days and 8 a couple days. The first day, they had me take a test, and I passed into level "B" (one above the most beginner) but my teacher insisted on giving me A anyway. We spent the day at that, but when I found that she didn't think I could skip to B the next day, I talked to the director (Monica de Caceres) who had me change teachers for the next day, and start on level B. Now, my teacher is Anabella Ponce Fuentes, and she's very good. She just turned 35 on Wednesday, and has 2 young children. I'm gonna post pictures tomorrow along with some of my trip to the volcano tomorrow!!
I also have to write a lot more about stuff in school after the first day, but this is it for now. The next post is about an experience I never wish for any of you...