Since we have arrived in
Classes started on Monday. So far I have just been trying to soak in as much Spanish as humanly possible. This is really the only thing I have legitimately been struggling with, because I have realized that this one is not completely in my control. I can't just sit and read my Spanish textbook or go out and talk to people all day and all of a sudden know the language. This is something that comes with time, patience, and perseverance, so I'm doing what I can to keep my attitude about that in the right place. Here's my schedule:
Not too shabby! All the classes on Friday will only be held on certain weeks, so we will often get three day weekends. This Friday we will have class, at least in the afternoon, since we did not have our Latin American Studies class yesterday. Not sure about the Elementary Spanish class yet.
This past Sunday we went to church for the first time down here in Iglesia de Cristo, a building that is actually attached to Casa ACU. It was definitely a new experience for all of us. We arrived pretty early so that we could take the time to greet everyone before the service started. Which, by the way, definitely takes up quite a bit of time, because everyone has to greet every single person before they sit down. Have I mentioned how people greet each other down here yet? Well, here they kiss each other's cheek. Usually you just touch your cheek to the other person's cheek and make a kiss noise, so it's really not as big of a deal as I thought it would be. However, the first time I was walking down the street and saw two thirteen year old boys kiss each other's cheeks as they said bye, I couldn't help but laugh!
Anyways, all the people at church were SO friendly and excited to see us. I recognized several of the tunes to the songs during worship, but was completely lost when it came to the actual message. I sat by an older man named Rubén who was ADORABLE. The congregation ate lunch afterwards and he sat by me again, telling me about how he turns seventy next month and that he gives art lessons. Neither one of us could understand basically anything the other said, which made for interesting conversations. He ended up stealing some of the napkins and drew my picture though, which was really sweet. After that he wanted to show off his drawing skills and ended up drawing me two other pictures, one of which had a poem that went along with it that he recited to us. It amazed me how God's love can be so evident even when no one has any idea what the other person is saying.
After church on Sunday some of the kids from the youth group took us down to La Rambla, which is kind of like a boardwalk that goes along the beach. We walked around for the entire afternoon/evening in the park across the street from La Rambla and by the ocean and eventually to a mall on the other side of town for dinner. We definitely got our exercise in for the day, and I was able to get some really great pictures of that end of the city. I'll put the rest of them up on facebook soon, I promise.
It was a gorgeous day. Though I learned a valuable lesson - not to slide down those hills on a piece of cardboard, no matter how many other people are doing it. Ask me to tell you about that story sometime.
Speaking of exercise, I joined a gym last night! There is a huge list of classes that you can go to, and with one monthly price you can go to as many of them as you want! Six of us went to the Aerobics class and worked out for an hour - it was pretty dang intense. But I'm really excited to go back - it was so fun! Take THAT, Raquel's cooking! There's no way I'll be gaining weight this semester if I keep working out like that.
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