Pics up & Back to school
Before I forget again want to tell about my trip to the bus station in Flores, the travel agency was to pick me up at the hotel & take me to the bus station but I guess all the vans were busy so a friend of the guy I booked the trip with came by with his motor bike & took me. What a blast ridiny on the back of the bike with my pack on my back & the wind blowing through my hair th the evening (no helmet laws in Guatemala) LOL.
Any way started Spanish school Friday, they have a real cool tourist set up here there are people that their sole job is to be out & about on the look out for tourists needing info so as I was standing where the Lonely Planet guide said the tourist office was reading the directions to the new location this helper comes along & 15 minutes after explaining I was looking for Spanish lessons I was signed up. First lesson on Friday went well & talking to a few people that have taken lessons seems like one week does wonders & that’s from students not staying with a family so I think 2 weeks of immersion should get me by until I get to Havana.
My family is super nice, daughter about 14 at home that does part time work as a translator also a medical doctor & lawyer in family but not sure the gender as only one day lessons so far. Have a room with private bath as other boarders room is empty & 3 meals a day (excepting Sunday) with family so no English unless you cheat & go to the coffee shop on the sguare (not timmies ) to talk to other travellers.
Antigua is apparently a really popular place for Spanish lessons with students coming from all over the world to study for varying lengths of time & I can see why, at less $30 US/day covering one on one lessons & board for full immersion you can’t beat the value.
OK a few pics up but as I have to load 1 pic at a time it would take for ever to post them all, to view you have to go back to my Oct 1st post flckr must be a better way but ‘puters & I have a live & let live relationship so if I can get it to do some of what I want will live with it LOL.
Maybe next time I will give my take on the difference between Tourists & Travellers, there is a difference.
BTW have only met one Canadian couple in my travels (a couple from Winnipeg at the bus station in Guadalajara.
Tags: Travel
busman7
At least you have time to rest for a couple of weeks before journeying on. Can’t seem to find the photos you mention. Can you post a link?
Went back to October 1st but couldn’t find pictures. I need to sign in. Glad you are having a rest before you start travelling again.
Hi Ken don’t have a clue what flckr is doing, it worked when I posted them & just tried & they wanted me to sign in then tried again & photos came up so ?????? At this point in time I am not impressed with flckr in the least!!!
Rest??? Mi professora has me conjugating Spanish verbs & is giving written home work & it’s only the 3rd day. Just signed up until next Friday.
Can you try adding bellagio123 on that flckr site. I joined up and searched for busman7 but there were no results. Cold front moved into Banes, just had a text saying it’s been raining all day.Hope it’s hot with you.
i went on the flickr site today..bellagio – i’ll send you the link…nice pix!!
im loving your blog Dave veryvery cool…
Bellagio here’s the link to the photostream of Busman72
http://flickr.com/photos/busman7/
Hi Dave, Just seen your photographs, hope you are enjoying yourself, you are certainly getting around and I hope you do well with your Spanish lessons. Very good
Thanks for the link pina. That shot of Antigua nearly had me thinking it was Banes.
Keep up the good work Dave.
no problema Bellagio…..im loving Dave’s updates and pix….i’ve never been to Banes or Antigua…just Varadero and Florida and DR…i gotta get out more! LOL
Dave … glad you’re having a great time! I enjoyed your photos very much! What a great experience you’re having! Oh yah .. I know all about conjugating verbs in every single freaken tense for 3 years now! It’s nuts! Right now, doing the subjunctive … again, haha but this time I actually know what she’s talking about. Something must have clicked, hahaha! Hope you have a ball with it! Take care!!!!
Hey Jan you can come down & help me with the verbs as my teacher says they are mucho importante.
Ken the pic is in front ot the most popular coffee shop in town but the fancy bikes were there for a rally & not local but the shop is pretty typical from what I have seen.
Hola Dave! Su profesora esta correcta! Hemos estado haciendo solamente verbos en nuestro clase hace tres anos. (We have been taking only verbs in our class for the past 3years). Si, son muy muy importante, especialmente los verbos de subjunctivo porque ese tiempo (tense) esta usado mas frequentemente! (sorry .. there are no accents on some words).
Dave, you will most likely find it easier than I did because I have no second language and trying to learn a new language at an older age … well, I feel like I’m mentally challenged at times. I do find it very hard especially with the freaken millions of rules, hahaha. Have you done the Ser and Estar verb yet (both are “to be”)? That’s a bute, lol! and I still at times have to think about which one to use!
The thing is .. to have fun while you’re learning. Neustro clase es muy serio y no es divertido pero … esta libre!
Hasta pronto!
Jan
Hola Jan Ser & Estar was my tarea por la fin de semena. Then she made me do an oral repost, en Eapanol, about my weekend excursion. That took up the 2 hr session before break.
Too bad you haven’t taken a bit of French because as the Swiss lady on the trip said if you don’t know the word just say the French one with a Spanish accent & you have a 50/50 chance of being right LOL
You’re absolutely right Dave! LOL! My husband Harv is French and that’s exactly what he does!!! hahaha! Looking back at my last note to you .. I noticed I got the Ser and Estar wrong … Su profesora ES correcta! Wow!!!!!!!! You did an oral report already? You’re really good! I have the hardest time “saying” things. Reading and writing is easier for me but to have to pull the words out of the air to make a sentence (one that makes sense) haha … is really frustrating but then, we kind of bypassed nouns and dwelling which seems like FOREVER on verbs! But with that I can get my message across; I’ll be known as the verbgirl, hahaha.
Hope you’re having a blast! What the temp there?
We have only covered verbs & the secret of Ser & Estar is that Ser refers to the To Be that doesn’t change; Yo Soy de Canada while Estar refers to a changable To Be; Yo (forgot) en Guatemala. And you think your memory is bad we were just reviewing the this morn LOL
Was muy frio la semane possada, low in single digits high around 20 this week back to normal 15 night 25 or so days.
Ser and Estar can be confusing. Here is one example: if someone is dead (which is permanent in my mind, lol), you use the Estar verb. Then there is the SER verb with is also contradicting such as “The teacher is kind to me or I am a hockey fan. To me those things are not permanent because your teacher can change her attitude or you may not be a fan of hockey possibly next month or year etc. There are so many rules, it makes it a bit hard to learn.
Hace muy frio aqui tambien y hay mucho nieve ahora.
Jan you can keep the snow in Canada & I will be moving on to warmer territory in El Salvador on Mon, elevation here is over 5000 ft so it´s muy frio here but on the playa in El Salvador I should be muy calore.
The more you learn of Espanol the less you know lol, just had to go out & buy a bigger dictonary as my pocket version wasn´t doing it any more, my teabher came with me & picked out un libro para las niño that´s my speed & while in the tienda found a biography of Che in Spanish so I have a new goal to learn enough to read it, couldn´t resist it for $12.00 US for a hard cover book.