Hola! Como estas? Yo estoy bien...and I hope you are all well too! (This keyboard is confusing me...I never thought about a keyboard en espanol being different!)

This is the first chance that I've had to get to a computer, so I hope none of you have packed up to come down here yet. My first few days have been a bit crazy - but I'm thinking it should calm down a bit...or maybe not!

Antigua is gorgeous. It reminds me a lot of West Virginia - only less developed and much warmer! It is surrounded by hills - well, volcanoes if you want to get technical, but only one is currently active. Hiking the volcanoes is an activity offered by many of the travel agents in the city; I'm hoping that once I've walked around the town for a few days, I'll feel up to looking into it...

The city is 10 blocks by 10 blocks; a perfect square centered around el parque central. I live about 8 blocks from the school - about a 15 minute walk. On my way, I pass a magnificent church and quite a few ruins from the earthquake that brought Antigua down from its capital status in 1776. There are flowers everywhere and the weather is gorgeous. At school, we sit in a courtyard, in small structures like individual picnic shelters. We get the breeze, but the sun is kept off of our shoulders and necks. It can be a bit distracting with the noises of the birds, etc, but I don't allow myself to become too distracted...I can be quite focused, when I want to be! :-P

I've already learned a lot of Spanish - I'm able to communicate un poco with the mother of mi familia who speaks no English. My room isn't spacious nor lavish, but it is clean and the people are friendly. The father speaks English - he is a doctor - but he agreed not to speak it with me unless I really needed him to...if the idea just wasn't coming across, you know? There are also three children, but they're only slightly younger than me, so they're not around much.

Let's see - a brief recap of my few days here:

Sunday - All of my flights were on time!! I arrived in Guatemala City around 12:30, Chicago time, 11:30 Guatemala time. I waited for my bag, then exited and found the person holding my name (I've always wanted that!!) The guy who had sat on the plane next to me from Houston to Guatemala City waved at me outside so, thinking we were friends, the driver offered him a ride to Antigua as well. Just as well, since he spoke a little Spanish, so I felt somewhat more comfortable.

Once in Antigua, I met my family and took a nap. After waking to dinner (a dinner of Chinese food, lol), they walked me to the school so I would feel comfortable getting there the next morning. We then walked to the parque centrale and back home, so I saw some of the city - and I liked what I saw!!

The next day, I had my first lesson en espanol. A bit overwhelming, but mi maestra, Rosie, is really nice and speaks a little bit of English, so I caught on. She said I learned quickly, which made me feel a bit better for all the times I had to say ¨lo siento¨ or ¨no lo se.¨ That's I'm sorry and I don't know, respectively. I learned some phrases, vocabulario, pronombres personales (I, you, he/she, we, and they), colores, days de la semana, and months of the year. I also began conjugating verbs...my favorite part of a language...or not. :-P

That afternoon, after eating lunch with the mother in my family, I joined a tour offered by the school. It was a walking tour of Antigua and it was me, a girl I had met from Germany, ella llama Alex, and a guy from the States, el llamo Daniel. They're extremely cool and we wound up hanging out around the park until it was time for me to leave and go back to mi casa. I then ate dinner, did mi tarea (they give us homework!), and went to be around 8 o'clock. I'm such a loser...

This morning, I went to class again (I'm taking 5 hours a day - from 8 to 1) and learned the alphabet, more verbs, and mas vocabulario. I ate lunch with the family, minus their son, and then came here to write to y'all. After this, I'm going to search the mercados for a Spanish dictionary - I thought la escuela would provide books, but they only provided a small study booklet. So, a dictionary will be necisito...let the fun of finding and paying for one en espanol begin!

After that, I may do my homework in the parque. Or simply wander around more...I can always save the homework for later, when it's too dark to walk around by myself. I should have brought my guidebook with me - but I left it at mi casa. Oh well.

Thanks for dealing with the sporadic Spanish - we're really not supposed to speak English, although I don't know nearly enough Spanish to get away with that. So this was my comprimise. :-)

I love you all and hope you're well.

Yo estoy enamorado (with) Guatemala!!

Lacey