We had our orientation after that and then took a walking tour of the city. If there is one thing I remember, it's the tienda con la vaca (the store with the cow). I know if I am facing la vaca, Intercultura is 3 blocks behind me. Other than that, I can't tell you where I went. This week our language classes are from 1:30 to 5:30 in the afternoon so we had quite a break. A group of us went to a cafe and ate more deliciousness. I had arroz con pollo y plátanos. Since we still had about an hour, we decided we would walk back to mamá tica's house and rest for a bit. We walked and walked and walked, but eventually turned around because we couldn't remember the way back even though we had 2 maps! So we found our way back to Intercultura and began classes. The classes are very intimate...there are only 2 other students in my class. Our profesora is very animated. Four hours seemed like it would drag on forever, but I actually had fun. We found ourselves laughing quite a bit and before we knew it, class was over. For homework tonight (yes, homework during the summer!) I have to write "La Bella y la Bestia" (Beauty and the Beast) using el imperfecto, preterito, y pluscuamperfecto. Task completed!
If there are three things I learned today, they are the following:
1) I can't stand or walk on my own two feet. I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk on the way to school this morning. Not bad, at least I didn't hit the ground, but things got progressively worse. Later in the day, though, I stepped into some random pipe coming out of the sidewalk and shed some blood. (A reason not to wear flip flops) And most embarassing of all, when we were waiting for our class assignments at Intercultura, all of the new students were standing on the sidewalk outside. The director was passing through with the assignments and needed us to clear the sidewalk a bit. I proceeded to back myself into the rocks lining the sidewalk and fell backwards into the bushes. Everyone was worried that I was injured, but really it only hurt my pride.
2) Pedestrians do NOT have the right of way...EVER! If I don't injure myself through my clumsiness, I quite possibly will be hit by a speeding car, motorcycle or bus. Enough said.
3) My roomate and I have no sense of direction. I already mentioned that we never found our way back to mamá tica's house during our lunch break. A bit worried about getting home after classes, I asked for clarification once we arrived back at school. We thought we had everything under control. Yes, this was not the way we remembered coming to school in the morning, but maybe it was a quicker route?! We headed south for 25 minutes and never found the street we were looking for. By this point it was getting dark so we turned around and got back to Intercultura because at least we knew where that was. Once we arrived, we explained that we were lost and they called our mamá tica. We talked to her and she explained to us where she would be waiting for us. We went outside and were still unsure of where to start. We went back inside to ask again and were taken outside and physically shown which direction to walk: north. We kept walking, hoping this was correct. It had to be. Finally we spotted mamá tica and Molly (her dog) across the street. We all started waving and we ran across the street and she embraced us. She said she was so worried about us when the school called. We apologized profusely (she had told us dinner was at 6:30 and it was definitely past that time and who knows how long she had been standing there waiting for us) She just told us she was glad we were okay. We came home to another delicious meal and it felt soooo good just to sit down after walking who knows how many miles in failed attempts to get home. Let's just say that class ended at 5:30 and we didn't arrive back at mamá tica's until 7 pm and it's supposed to be a 10 minute walk; however, she made sure that we knew the way in order to get to school tomorrow.
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