Week Dos

I'm back! Sorry I haven't written in so long. It's been an exhausting few days with very little down time. My legs are still bruised up from canyoning but the soreness is almost gone. Hopefully I can get to my pictures soon.

Last Friday, we decided to try to have a relaxing day just staying at the school, but there were so many activities I didn't get a chance to blog then either. Right after school we took a class in jewelry making, using natural materials. Then there was a class to learn salsa and merengue dancing. I caught on to salsa much faster than merengue but plan on taking the class again this week to prove myself. The school here has a hot tub,

and on Friday nights they have a mini-party with drinks and music, so after dance class I joined the rest of the 20-somethings there. This school is a very interesting mix of people. About half of the students are college age and the other half are vacationing families. Then there's a handful of people at ages in between, like a doctor studying for her boards and a German surgeon taking specialized medical classes so she can volunteer in developing countries. One thing is for sure, almost everybody here has a fascinating story about how they got here and why they're learning Spanish. Most people are from the US but there are a few from European countries learning Spanish as a third or fourth language. 

This weekend a few of us took an overnight trip to the Arenal Volcano. The volcano had a huge eruption in 1968, and smaller one in 1992, and then gave off a small flow in 2009. The lava from each eruption is in slightly different places and it's awesome to get to see how cooled lava ages over time and how flora grow back after an eruption. We couldn't go to the top but we got to climb around on some of the more recent lava towards at the bottom. The top is almost always covered by a mixture of clouds and smoke from the two cones, but we were lucky and had a small gap of time where the clouds cleared and we could see all the way to the top. It's huge! Apparently if we had been here 2 or 3 years ago, at night you could still see orange, molten lava slowly dripping out of the top. Also, the place we stayed there was incredible. They had a giant pool with a swim up bar that was filled by spring water warmed by the volcano. Ridiculous. 

Today we started a new week of Spanish classes. There are fewer people here than before because summer break is ending in the US so I am in solo classes all day. 5.5 hours of one-on-one Spanish is beyond exhausting. By the end of the day I was struggling to even remember English! I think I'll improve a ton by the end of the week though since there's nowhere to hide and the teacher can take as long as she wants correcting me. Plus I'm getting to a point where I can talk about more complicated issues. I spent my afternoon classes today talking about the infrastructure and social services in Uganda and what responsibility a government had to the poorest people in its country (in mostly very small words).

Alright. That's all I got for now. I'm taking a day off from activities so that I can make a giant stack of flash cards to keep my verbs straight. Llegar, llevar, llamar, here I come!

Oh also I finally got the pix from rappelling. Here are my two favorites: