Spanish School, Salsa and Siestas...
Trip Start
Nov 20, 2008
1
7
Trip End
Ongoing
Antigua Guatemala, Western Highlands, Guatemala
Thursday, December 11, 2008
I somehow managed to find the exact hostel I stayed at last time, and not surprisingly it felt and looked like it hadn´t changed a bit. I really like that fact that I am a traveller again, especially in a country so beautiful and close to my heart. Even from the beginning, my spanish has held up quite well and I even surpised myself some of the conversations I was able to have with other travellers and people I have met.
Since, I have moved into the home of a lovely guatemalan lady named Silvia. Not only is she the most fabulous cook, sitting down at meals with her is another spanish lesson in itself. She´s fantastic to practise new verbs with, and her little dog Terry is just adorable!
Managed to enrol myself in private spanish classes for the next week or so, and so far it has been challenging but good. The early morning starts... not so good! For four hours a day, my lovely teacher Sabrina bombards me with espanol, espanol and more espanol. Luckily conversations are beginning to feel a little more fluent, although alot of the time, grammatically not so perfect.
Afternoons are spent having private Salsa lessons. My teacher Mike, happens to be the brother of the lady who taught Samson salsa when he was living in Antigua (Carmen). So far I am two lessons in (with another today, and everyday for the next week or so), but already he has taught me so much more! My movement is alot tighter now though I am having trouble keeping up with the sexy ´styling´ element of salsa. Apparently its a responsibility of the female to play the sexy and flirtatious role, and the guy to lead and show off. But from my perspective, how can I compete with the guate chicas!!! My teacher however isnt impressed by my inability to salsa flirtatiously, constantly telling me ´mas sexy Amber, mas, mas!!!´
Nights are spent frequenting the many of bars and discotecs in Antigua, and putting into practice all that I had learnt that day (dancing salsa, not spanish!!!). Really cant complain about a thing at the moment.... bliss.
