un dia typico en granada.

Our first week of school has concluded… I can’t believe we’ve been here that long already!
Here’s a rundown of our typical day…
We usually get up pretty early and shower… Inez has a freaking mondo breakfast ready for us at 7:30, like clockwork. (Every morning there is a SERIOUS pile of beans and rice, eggs, cheese, and some form of banana. Today we got a fried banana and a fresh one… with all the other food.) Post the stuff of breakfast we walk to class (the school is about a five minute walk down the road…) to the chorus of the ever present latino males lounging around doing nothing but yelling things at us as we walk by. (Italy revisited.)

We have classes from eight in the morning until noon… with a half hour break around ten-ish.

I really enjoy my teacher… she’s pretty serious which is something to get used to, but she loves Spanish and teaching it. She graduated from the university here with a bachelors in Spanish… and decided to become a teacher, because of the influence of her professors. I’m happy that I got matched up with someone who loves the art of language as much as I do. She’s the perfect teacher for me… other than her lack of humor found in my lamo comments… which have diminished since she speaks no English and my Spanish is horrific! I seem to be understanding more Spanish… contextually. If I know the subject of whatever is being said to me, I can get most of it… but the second someone starts talking to me without my having any previous notion of what they might say… I am lost like a fool. Pretty much I just wake up everyday and brace for looking like an idiot… it’s what I do best here. Complete idioso.

After class we walk back to the house and eat lunch… and usually take a little siesta. (the heat in the afternoon is unbearable… and for some reason, our room is usually about ten degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Apholstery gets uber hot, sitting on the bed in the afternoon literally feels like sitting on a heater…) Somehow, we just can’t seem to stay awake when it’s that hot and we’ve just eaten a huge hot meal.

Post napping, we head back to the school for the afternoon excursion, which usually lasts until 5-ish and then we head back to the casa, eat dinner, and then study.

We have so much studying to do! (well… duh… that shouldn’t have surprised me…) We take a day to learn what you learn in school in a week or two… so needless to say, we have MUCHO vocab to learn. My speaking skills are still pretty much non-existent. (I think after the first two weeks, when I have most of the rudiments down, I can really start speaking, and then I think I’ll pick it up quicker.) I suppose it’s good that none of the staff at the school speaks English so we can’t default there. (well… Carlos speaks English… a bit, but today he told Shawna and I that he was cutting us off after next week and would only talk to us in Spanish from then on… horrible man.)

Anyway… that’s a typical day for us… kudos to anyone who read this entire long post!