Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Mimi | El primer día de clase de español May 2, 2011

Behind on the blog so will have to do some catch up posts on my night walk in Monteverde and the river safari in La Fortuna.


Made it through my first day of class after a placement test at 7:15am (ouch!).   3 other people in my class this week- a 21 year old French speaking Canada who is spending 2 weeks here and 2 weeks volunteering on a turtle project, a family law attorney from Chicago who is unemployed right now (probably early 30s) and a German woman in her 50s who has been traveling since February and is going back in June.   Turns out she's an avid diver and did 2 ten day liveaboards on this trip - one to the Cocos Islands and one off the coast of Panama - we were talking about going diving together maybe Sunday.

Entire school is probably 75% Swiss - probably because it's Swiss owned and they do some sort of certification.   About 20 people split between morning and afternoon classes - mostly kids in their early 20s.   In fact, the German woman, Gabriela, and I clicked probably from an age as well as interest perspective  - she's a freelance German - French translater and her partner is a computer/IT guy who evidently works a lot and meets up with her for a couple of weeks on these long trips.

I'm in the perfect class for this week  - we're all about the same level with differing levels of vocabulary..   Gabriela is hard to understand in Spanish sometimes because of her German accent though...    Learning the past tense - which I had some exposure to living with my host family when I was in Cuernavaca, Mexico 3 years ago since I had to tell my family what I did in the afternoons when I got back.  Teacher, Sylvia, seems pretty good - has taught at the school for 9 years and before was a criminologist in San Jose.

Too hot though to spend a lot of time in the sun without a dip in the pool or the ocean.  I was just outside on the balcony at 6:30am and started a major sweating boat.    Condo is perfect for Lisa and I - pretty quiet except some cat yowling in the wee hours this morning.   Just cut up some mango and papaya, brewed a cup of coffee and catching up on email.

Today, Lisa and I are planning to sign up for the 3pm surf lesson class.   We're talking about signing up for the afternoon/sunset catamaran cruise tomorrow starting at 1pm which includes kayaking, snorkeling, lunch on the boat and free drinks - but much smaller than those party cruises that we've seen with the drunk Springbreakers in Mexico.   

Hasta luego!

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