Mimi | 1st Week of School Done... May 6, 2011

Hard to believe that Friday has come upon us so quickly. It felt like yesterday that they were trying to place us in the right Spanish class on Monday. So what have I learned this week ? Yes, I have gone to class and actually done homework every night. Sylvia, our teacher has made it fun by having us do a lot of talking rather than correcting every miss of every accent I forget to write For instance, we talked about the differnces in health systems in countries - Betsy, an attorney from Chicago and I talked about the US system and medicare/medicaid but also the issues of having or even obtaining private insurance. Isabelle from Quebec talked about Canadian health care and Gabriela about the system in German. We also learned about how the health care systems works here in Costa Rica, and I have to admit, it's actually better than what we do in the US with making it more available to more people - maybe more like universal medical care?

So..... by Friday, we are able to haltingly broach some interesting topics for our class although we all seem to struggle with when to use the words "por" and "para" and "a la" and "en" in sentences.

Most importantly, its a chance to meet a diverse group of people from all over the world and with very different life experiences that under "normal" circumstances wouldn't have been a social group. Where else would a 19 year old high school student going to college next year be hanging out with a French/German translator who is going to class with the attorney who is doing legal defense work for victims of domestic violence..... The diversity of languages spoken, ages, life experience is vast and makes it so interesting and the thing that we have holding us together is that for our own reasons, each of us has an interest in learning Spanish.

Tomorrow, we wake up bright and early for a 6:30am pick up in front of our adventure to Rincon De La Vieja volcano about 2 hours away. There, we have an "all day adventure" including horseback riding, rapelling, zipline and tubing down the river to be finished with time at the hot springs and mud baths. We won't get back to Tamarindo until probably 6pm. It'll be a chance to see outside of the beach towns and head a bit in to the hills where the climate and animal life is also a bit different.

Lisa or I will need to come back to this blog tomorrow to quickly describe today's adventure at Playa Conchal after our classes and also our meal at La Caracola - the best seafood I've had all week! Whole grilled red snapper, seafood with rice (arroz con mariscos) - all for under US$25 including 2 drinks. Pictures forthcoming of our food too.... stay tuned....