My First Week

I just completed my first week of Spanish classes, and what an improvement! I´m already able to get by on the street, and I have even started dreaming in Spanish! There is nothing like learning a language while living in a place where people speak only that language.

Aside from language classes, the school offers daily classes on other cultural topics. On Monday, my first day, the school offered a class on musical instruments of Ecuador. I did not attend, as it was my first day, and I was still getting situated.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the school offers salsa dance classes. I attended both sessions this week, and had an amazing time. We actually learned difficult steps and really felt like we were ready for salsa clubs when class was over. The teacher demonstrated the steps with me on more than one occasion. Here are a couple of pictures of our salsa class. The first is our teacher demonstrating a dip on me, and the second is my partner trying to do the dip.

On Wednesday, the school offered a cooking class. As a vegetarian, I was not able to eat the final product, shrimp ceviche, but I had fun nonetheless. Here are some pictures of students in the cooking class. The first is my friend, Will (from London):

As for the second picture, I don't know the person on the left, but in the back, drinking a beer, is Sybil (from Oregon), and on the right is Nadia (from England).

I have also had the opportunity to spend time with other students outside of school. A group of students goes out for drinks almost every night after classes, so people have really gotten to know each other. There is a large group of students from Germany, and others from England, Switzerland, Australia, and of course, the United States. It has been a lot of fun getting to know people from all over the world.

That´s it for now. More to come!