August 24 round 2

August 24, 2008 round II

Today was a lot of fun. I slept in, we had breakfast then I showered and studied more Spanish. Then Ligia’s (my host mom) brother came over. He was pretty funny. He spoke really quickly so I didn’t understand him most of the time. I kept saying “no se” because I had no idea what he was saying and he joked with me and said I was saying “Jose” and then he went on about how Jose is my boyfriend and he’s the man of my dreams. It was pretty funny. So finally he asked about my real boyfriend and he couldn’t say “Matt” so he renamed him “Map”. Ligia’s brother ( I don’t know his name) took me to use the internet, so if you got my earlier e-mail then you can thank him.

I also met the other kids in the program today. We had dinner at Mama Clorlinda (I think that’s the- I really don’t know). Anyways it’s an authentic Ecuadorian restaurant, the food was ok. I really haven’t been hungry since I got here; I think it’s a side effect of the altitude sickness. But the other kids in the program seem nice. There is one girl who is here with her fiancé and she’s not living with a host family. I personally think she’s crazy to live in a foreign country without a host family to start things off, but she speaks fluent Spanish so I don’t think she’s that worried.

Besides the fact that today was awesome, I have really exciting news. I had my first Spanish conversation today where I forgot that I was speaking Spanish and the words just kind of flowed. It was probably the most exciting thing that’s happened since I got here. After it was over I was pretty jazzed and my host sister, Maria Fernanda even said that I spoke well. So hopefully I can keep up the momentum, after all the point of coming here as opposed to a country in Asia was to learn Spanish.

As for Monday; I start Spanish classes at 8:30 and go until 12:30 then I have lunch for a half hour and then from 1 until 4, I have “living in Ecuador” classes. It sounds likes its going to be lots of fun.

Adios,

-Ayla