Por ejemplar...

I am at our awesome language school, FairPlay, waiting for flight websites to load so I can get my ticket back to Lima from Peru. I'm tempted to change my flights and stay here a few more weeks, but should probably not do that...



Thought I'd write more about a typical day in class. It starts at 8am. Our practical teachers, Ileana y Moly, pick Siri and I up at our homestay and we walk around Cuzco and talk for about 2 hours. How can I have a conversation in Spanish for 2 hours if I can't understand or speak the language very well? It's surprising, but it actually works out just fine, mostly because my teacher is so patient. I'm not quite sure how she deals with having to remind me for the 3rd time in 10 minutes that an umbrella es en paragua.


All 3 days, we've gone to markets or mercados. And all 3 days, I need to be reminded what an onion is, what a papaya is, what an avacado is...I thought avacado would be the same. nope. it's plato, or plano or, well, I've forgotten already...We talk about food, me gusta platana, me gusta tomate, me gusta queso, etc...and colors. Manzanas son rojas, el arbol es verde, me bolsa es roja, tengo dos hermanas, etc...and all 3 days she asks me how many niños I have. I reply, no ninños, solo una gato. Why not, she asks? Ít´s hard enough to explain in English, but in another language and across cultures, it´s a little more difficult to describe American dating and how cultural attitudes here towards being single and not having kids has changed... We had a great conversation about children today! I understood that she has 3 kids, and her first 2 boys are twins! I got excited to explain to her that I have dos amigas en U.S. who also have twins. ...and then I learned and promptly forgot the Spanish words for twin boys and twins with one boy and one girl...Another excitng thing about today - I bought my teacher and I tamales and chocolate. I´d be very happy if I was able to enjoy a tamale every day while I´m here. It´s the little things...

After exploring the city for 2hrs, we go to the school for 2 hours of grammar with my teacher Antonia. I have homework! Last night, I had 30 or 40 minutes worth of homework. I feel like I´m in elementary school again filling out worksheets. and I feel bad when I confuse el and la or masculino y feminino. Again, she´s very, very patient which I soooo appreciate! By the 3rd day, I feel like I´m starting to get the hang of somethings and other rules (and excepciones!) are very confusing. Today I learned how to ask and respond to all sorts of questions, what kind of foods do I like, what kind of sports, when is my birthday, how many hermanos y hermanas I have, how many niños I have (no niños? por que no?), etc...I´m so incredibly thankful for the week here to practice Spanish intensely, but I really appreciate how much further I could get with even more time.

so...to my Spanish speaking friends, I´m serious about having Spanish-only lunches o dinners. Although, I can completely understand that it may be a very frustrating experience for you and I may use up all of your patience when I describe the color of the 10 nouns that I know to you over and over...El perro es grande, el perro es marron, la gata es negra, la casa es blanca, los zapatos son azules...

Oh - and I finally remembered...En ingles, esta una avacado, en español, esta palta.

Ok time to run! We´re also planning the last few details of our treks. We leave Saturday (Sabado) por Machu Picchu via the Inca Trail. From everything I keep hearing, it´s going to be amazing. and I´m going to be out of breath and possibly cold and am going to take a bazillion pictures.

Adios!