First week in Latin-America

Even though I've split the text into paragraphs, it comes out as one big chunk of text. Ill try to fix that later, but for now you just have to work your way through First of all; I’ve posted two posts at the same time. I wrote the first post the evening I got here, but I haven’t been able to post it before now. Anyways. It’s been a week since I left home, and so far it’s been awesome. Despite being long and tiresome, the journey went without problems. The family I live with are really nice. There’s a mother, Margarita, a father, Mariano, and a daughter named Anna. They live in a nice colonial-style house on the edge of the city, just a five minute walk away from the school. The Perezes have three rooms for students, and currently there’s a couple of Americans living in the other two. An older lady and this other guy, Terry. The rooms are like the rest of the house, a bit worn and old, but nice and clean. Indeed the whole city is like that. Antigua was once the Spanish capital in Central-America, and as a result, they made it into a beautiful city. The streets are lined with nice, colorful houses, and there are plenty of squares and pretty churches. But, a big part of the city was ruined in a big earthquake in 1775 or so, and afterwards the capital was moved a bit further north and is now known as Guatemala City. Most of the normal houses and some of the churches has been rebuilt and restored to its former glory, but there are still quite a few ruins here. And besides, that was a long time ago, so as I said, it is worn. It’s still a nice place though, especially the many gardens. The city itself has approx 35000 inhabitants and is located in a valley surrounded by lush hills and a huge volcano. Today it is very popular for backpackers and people wanting to learn Spanish, and this has set its mark on the city. There are McDonalds, Subway and Dunkin’ Donuts here, several American pubs, and at the pharmacy I was able to get precisely the same shampoo and toothpaste as I’m using back home. Some of the people I have met have told me that Antigua is not like most places in Latin-America, but I think it’s okay that there are some similarities to home. After all, I went here to get a soft start. The language school I’m going to, Don Pedro de Alvarado Spanish School, is a very nice place. The tutoring is one on one, which means that each student has a teacher of their own. During classes we sit at tables in this gallery surrounding a lovely garden. I’ve had Spanish for a few years at school, but that’s a long time ago, and that the time I wasn’t really keen on learning much. As a result, I knew a lot of words and frases when I got here, but verbs and other stuff, not so much. I’ve learnt a lot this week though, so now I’m able to have small conversations in Spanish. I’m probably not using all the verbs correctly, but at least people understand what I’m saying. And yesterday, when we went to a coffee plantation, I understood pretty much everything that the guide was said. That made me feel really smart, haha. These last few months have been really irregular, and I haven’t had any routines whatsoever. So far, it has been totally different down here. Breakfast is at seven, and classes start at eight. I currently have “class” from eight to twelve, but starting next week I’ll study from eight to one, because that is when lunch is served. Some people have classes in the afternoon as well, but I prefer joining the school’s many activities. There is something happening every day, and this week there’s been a movie about Guatemalas history, a couple of trips to some churches and a tour of a nearby coffee plantation. In addition, there’s a weekly dinner. The dinner is for all the students, and afterwards there are free salsa lessons and drinks. As they say down here; me gusta mucho! I’ll tell you more about everything later, but now I got to go. To sum up; first week in Guatemala has been a bit colder than I expected, but otherwise awesome. Nice places, nice people, nice food, nice everything really. I have taken loads of pictures, but Im not able to post them yet. They’ll come soon, promise! - Magnus out PS; I don’t have my Norwegian simcard here, so you won’t be able to get in touch with me by phone. Here in Antigua I’ll have internet connection more or less every day, so the best way is to send me an email or facebook message if there’s anything.