Monday, October 10, 2005
Another Weekend Update:
Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog in the last 2 weeks, here's the abridged version of what's been going on:
Sorry I haven't been keeping up with the blog in the last 2 weeks, here's the abridged version of what's been going on:
- We're moving!
I know we've raved about our apartment & how nice our neighbors & neighborhood are, but we've got a major problem living here: there's too much English. Before leaving the states I was often asked if I thought my Spanish was sufficient for a year away in Latin America & I'd always answer back about how Ellie & I were taking a month long intensive Spanish course & then living in Costa Rica for 9 months, which would give us enough of a background to get by. Ah, "the best laid plans..." This is what actually happened: We both teach English for a living & tell all of our students that they can't speak Spanish in our classes. All our neighbors in the building speak English, all the movies we watch & things we read on the web are in English. There's very little in our routine that demands a lot of Spanish. When I take cabs or people engage me on the street I can get my point across, but I know I'm messing up 1/2 the time by the looks I get (which is funny, because until I speak most people assume I'm from Costa Rica's carribean coast). I do get about 2 out of the 3 hours of Spanish class offered @ my job every Friday, a little bit of conversation, some new vocabulary that I promptly forget, & sometimes a game before my co-workers & I switch back to English.
One of my big goals for this year was to learn Spanish. That's not going to happen if I'm not practicing it. We spoke more Spanish during the 4 days we were in Nicaragua than in the 2 months since leaving school. When we got back we realized that we needed to make Spanish our priority, so we'll be moving by the end of the month. - Ellie's back in school. She's found a language school that isn't ridiculously expensive (it's assumed that rich gringos are the only one's who need to learn Spanish here so prices are generally inflated) with a teacher she really likes within walking distance of where we've been living & her job, she's taking 10 hours of Spanish every week & loving it. I'd like to take classes as well, but want to get back on schedule with capoeira before I commit to any classes (I haven't been going since we started looking for an apartment).
Ellie and Kepfram, 8:32 AM
