Second Day of Classes

Yesterday afternoon Camille was invited to play sports with the children at our host family. Daniel (10) and Sylvia (15) and Camille went out and played volleyball in the street. The neighborhood boys were zipping down the streets on handmade scooters, using their feet for brakes. While they were out la Senora showed me all the exotic fruits, spices, types of corn and potatoes in the kitchen. Then she explained about their local treat, picarones, which are sort of like doughnuts but made from corn meal and drizzled with honey. She decided to drive us over to a local street vendor she knows so we could sample them. Tasty!

After that we came back into town for the welcome dinner for all the students at a restaurant. We had the entire restaurant for ourselves (about 20 students and 2 people who work at the school). We got to try the favorite drink Pisco Sours. Camille didn't want the alcohol, so I got two. We had chicken with gravy, fries, something like lasagna but with potatoes instead of pasta, and fruit with honey. There was a band there playing traditional Andean music and playing guitars, flute, pan-pipes, and whistling. After that it was quite late so we took a taxi home. Daniel was still finishing his homework (at 10pm). 

We just finished our second day of classes. We have two different teachers (Paola and Giovanni) every day so we can see different teaching styles and accents. Yesterday there was just one other student with us in the class; today were two. So far everything we have done has been review for us, but they have covered most of Spanish 101 in two days, so it moves very fast and we are speaking more. In that small class we really have to concentrate. Also having meals with our family and getting around town we constantly are hearing and speaking Spanish.

Today for breakfast we had homemade juice, coffee, and  fresh cheese on Peruvian bread. Then we walked to our class and got here about 15 minutes early in which we got tea/coffee (they have some in the courtyard area for the students) and checked our email and updated the blog. Now we are going to go back to the house for lunch and then we are planning to look around the city.