It is Marthas birthday today and she turns 50. You wouldnt know it to look at her. I dont think she has one gray hair and her skin is bonita. She showed up today with a new hair cut. Yesterday she had hair at least halfway down her back and today it was cut as short as mine. I took
After class I felt like getting out of the urban setting so after a big lunch ($4) I set out for Parque La Carolina. Its a huge place and within just moments of entering the din of the traffic reduced. Some days the noise pollution is overwhelming. Im sensitive to sounds/noise as it is and there just doesnt seem to
Were moving into new Spanish territory, so to speak, and its a good challenge. It feels slow and I keep reminding myself that its not a race, Im not being ranked, and I have nothing to prove. Still . About three quarters through our session today, in a low voice Martha said something in Spanish and then said Son of a
I took the bus to Old Town, the Historic part of town. Using the Frommers and a map from the tourist information place, I figured out how to take the bus. The buses are crowded, probably because the fare is only 25 cents. And, if youre a senior its half price. The narrow cobblestone streets are busy with people going
Today Martha and I covered conjugating AR-ER-IR verbs. This is the very last thing I did in the class this fall so everything from now on will be brand new. She and I actually had a little bit of a conversation today but its all in the context of whats in front of me in writing. The only thing I
I got online at Vida Verde today and caught up a bit. Unlikely that I will haul my computer with me every day so the updates will become less frequent. Im navigating fine through the city, albeit in a small. Close to the school and host family home neighborhood. I havent made it to any of the suggested attractions yet.
Martha seems to know just when to switch it up. We work a little bit on verbs, switch to vocabulary all the while working on pronunciation. She agrees that patience is very important. We spent a considerable amount of time on ser/estar, the to be verbs today. Although it seems like my vocabulary and pronunciation are improving a little bit,
I like my Spanish teacher, Martha, a lot. She is patient, 49, single, without children. Today we covered about three or four weeks of my eight week class that I took this fall. Almost all the concepts we covered today were familiar. The school is sort of a hodge podge building with apparently not enough rooms. Martha and I were
Quito is a busy city. Its run down, dirty, rife with traffic, noise, and graffiti. Quito is 22 miles long and three miles wide. I felt the 9,000+ feet last night and a little bit today on the walk back to the host familys place. Venturing out on my own, I found a place to have lunch and do my
My host family lives on a huge roundabout on the third floor of a non-descript building that seems to be right under the flight path of the airport. My bedroom has a very large window that looks out on to the cobblestone and grassy plaza that is the center of the roundabout. There is a fountain in the middle of