Espanol Overload

Buen dia! After a bit of a rough weekend in the stomach department from the extreme change in la comida (food), (and perhaps the large quantity of rum consumed with our buddies on Sunday night) Erin and I are on our third day of full 8 hour espanol lessons and going strong. Its pretty overwhelming, the more we learn the more we realize how much we dont know! Our brains are working hard and we hit the pillow hard at the end of the day, some of us at 7pm... some of us at a more reasonable hour like 9:30.. haha! We have been doing a bit of exploring in Antigua in our little breaks in between class, found some pretty wicked restaurants and little pubs etc. Its kind of nice just to wander around the cobblestone streets and cruise through central park where there are often little bands playing authentic spanish music such as Ubreak my Heart and other 80s classics. Class is starting, we will write again soon, adios for now!

To Learn Hebrew or Spanish?

Erin Says....

Well we made our way to the Jungal Party hostal in Antigua with no problems. We began to wonder if maybe we should be learning Hebrew instead of Spanish being that 90 percent of the people we met at the hostel were Israeli. (Apparently after the men and women serve their time in the army travelling is the thing to do) We roomed with 3 boys from Israel who had just finished and are in the first month of a year long trip. It´s crazy how we´ve already met tons of cool people in just a couple nights.!!

We have taken our first spanish lesson this morning and have just dropped out stuff off at our homestay for the next two weeks. They are wonderful. However, there´s something odd about seeing that there is virtually no food in their cupboards and they´ve just prepared us a huge lunch while our homestay mom ate a plain tortilla. Something that is quite odd to digest. We have decided to go full bore and do 8 hours a day for ten days one on one lessons. If we can´t get by after that we are hopeless!! So we won´t have much interesting to write for the next couple weeks. (In fact, everyone´s told us we are going to hate the lessons, but we are adamate about learning a fair bit) We are here until the 19th of September and then we are likely heading to Rio Dulce and then Flores and Tikal.

For our familia, if you don´t hear from us, Antigua is a really safe place and we´ll just be studying and hanging out so no need to worry at all. (Oh and once we get a few things sorted out, there will be pictures to come!)

Lots of Love and Hugs :)

Safe Arrival

Alyece and Erin say...

Hola Familia y Amigos!
We have arrived safely at our hostal! (Most important information first). We are currently a little out of sorts, being that it´s taken us about twenty minutes just to navigate the internet in Spanish. I think we´ve realized that intensive Spanish lessons are necessary upon our arrival to Antigua tomorrow. Suprisingly the travel went really smoothly, only being specially selected for complete search down at one customs station, and almost going home with our Mexican flight check in attendant who was trying to convince us to stay with him in Mexico and learn Espanol from him. Everyone so far has been extremely friendly and things are looking up because we are currently residing in the master suite at Los Volcanos. Anyway, we are insanely exhausted and will try and spit out enough Spanish to find somewhere to buy a phone card. Talk to everyone soon, with real stories. The Infamous CHICKEN BUS
Hugs and Smiles