Days Three and Four

Tuesday – 6/29/2010
Not much to say about Tuesday except that I must have jinxed myself when I posted that the skies were clear. The morning was beautiful while I was having my Spanish lessons but after lunch when I went back to the school to go on a group hike up to a look-out point called Cerro de la Cruz, it started raining, again! Everyone keeps saying that this is not normal weather for Antigua and that it usually rains for an hour or two in the afternoons but never ALL DAY LONG! Despite the rain, it was a good hike and beautiful views of the city, I’ll have to go back when it is really nice out and there are no clouds so that I can see more. I have some pictures and hopefully, I’ve figured out how to upload them correctly.

Here are some from the hike:




This is Jorge, the special activities director for Mundo Spanish School, where I’m taking my classes. He lead us on the hike and is really great about telling us interesting information about Antigua and the surrounding areas. My Spanish is still not quite up to par to understand everything he says but one question I asked him was about why all of the churches in Antigua were in ruins. He said that it was because of the earthquakes and because there were so many earthquakes in Antigua that ruined buildings and disrupted life, the government moved the capital from Antigua to Guatemala City. I might have to look that one up on Wikipedia to make sure I did, in fact, understand what he said.


la Cruz

Here are a few photos of where I am staying. I want to get a few pictures with the family as well but I don’t know if I will because it seems like staying with a host family is more like a boarding house than an actual host family. I don’t interact much with the family except the mother, Jacqueline and sometimes the father, Milton. Maybe it’s because I don’t know quite enough Spanish to carry on a good conversation but the three children seem to mostly ignore me.



My bedroom

Wednesday – 6/30/2010
I went running this morning around town at 5:45am. It was very quiet and not too hard to run through the streets. Although, it started raining AGAIN. I was supposed to run with another American guy, Adam, but we had said that we would meet in the central park at 5:30am IF it wasn’t raining. So, when I woke up this morning, I looked outside in the courtyard and it looked wet but it didn’t look like it had been raining. I proceeded to put on all of my running gear and headed out to meet up with Adam. I took one step outside the door of my house and realized that it was sprinkling. I contemplated going back inside and going back to sleep but then I figured, what the hell, I’m already awake, I’m already dressed and I already consumed a package of Shot Blocks for energy because I thought I would be running for about an hour and didn’t want to eat breakfast before running. So, I went to the central park and as expected, Adam did not show up because it was raining. I made a short loop around the town, about 2 miles, and went back home. I got pretty wet in the process but it was good to get out and do a bit of exercise. I might try again tomorrow morning.

Lessons went well today, but I’ve realized that if I am going to learn Spanish quickly, I am going to have to do more practicing and studying on my own after the lessons are done. We were doing exercises today and I had already forgotten some words that I learned on Monday. I guess this is how you learn a language though. It is how I learned German but over the course of six years as opposed to the two or three weeks I will be in classes here. My teacher keeps telling me “poco en poco”. At least, I think that’s what she’s saying.

With that, I am headed back home to do my homework and prepare for tomorrow’s classes. One exciting excursion…I get to climb a volcano tomorrow afternoon….maybe even stand near some hot lava. I’ll definitely post some pictures of that!