The rest of the week has been less blog-worthy, but wonderful nonetheless. We burned ourselves out a bit with all the activities last week, and that coupled with 5.5 hours a day of one-on-one Spanish class led us to take Monday through Wednesday as time to settle in and focus on our Spanish memorization. Each day after school Lucy and I, often with a few other students, walk into town (a 20 minute walk from the school) and go to our favorite coffee shop (ie the only one with fast wifi that's also open past 6pm) to work. We settle down on the porch with warm chai lattes and our books, and chat while we do our homework, check our emails, fbs, instas, words with friends games, etc, and watch the many tourists walking by.
My classes this week have been, while exhausting, especially entertaining. Even talking at my current speed (let's just say if the tables were turned I'd run out of patience within 15 minutes) 5.5 hours a day of mostly conversation leads to some creative, vocabulary-boundary-pushing conversations. Today in class my teacher asked me what news I was reading from the US (I get to school early each morning to read a bit so I don't feel totally disconnected) and I brought up Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning and his brave declaration of his true identity. This led to a whole discussion of sex vs gender, social construction, and progressive versus traditional approaches to the freedoms that people should be granted in their personal lives. I think I may have shocked my very Catholic teacher a bit, but she took it all in stride and we had as interesting a conversation as one could hope for with 4 years of high school Spanish 6 years ago, ultimately finding common ground in that people are born with the right to be respected until they violate someone else's right to be respected. More stories about my conversations later, but in general the teachers here seem to really enjoy (or maybe just pretend to enjoy?) talking about American politics, both the good and the bad, which has worked out pretty well for my personal engagement levels.
Lucy and I have been constantly reflecting on what we're learning about traveling that will help us plan and prepare for Argentina. Not only are we coming up with a (perhaps overly) comprehensive packing list, but we're reflecting on how we like to travel and what challenges we think will come our way. This has definitely been a reality check for our romanticized version of the year to come. We are still really excited to get going, but have internalized a little better that it's going to be tough. One important thing we discussed today is the 10 days theory. That is how much time, we hypothesize, it takes to feel out a new place and get into a routine. We've also adopted the barnacle method- an tactic loosely based on the idea that often the best adventures come from just saying yes to some other person's idea and tagging along.
Tomorrow is our last day in Monteverde. While we are looking forward to getting some beach time, we are also going to miss this small town a lot. Although every day I am taken aback multiple times by the beauty of this area (our classrooms even all have giant picture windows looking out into the forests) I still feel like I have taken it for granted. I have one more afternoon to do everything else I wanted to do here and Im going to make it count! On that note, it is 9pm, which means bedtime for Lily. I haven't had a regular bedtime (self-imposed or not) this early since... Maybe ever?
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