Spanish Classes - day 1

Well, we started our spanish class today.  We were there promptly at 9am excited to learn.  She gave us our book and dove right into the alphabet...we were feeling really good about that part and having fun pronouncing words and asking for meanings.  Then we dove right into the 2 forms of "be" (Ser and Estar).  We spent the next few hours trying desperately to understand completely overwhelmed and trying not to get frustrated.  Thankfully, Carmen, our sweet and patient teacher, kept a smile on her face and a sense of humor.  We were assured that by day 3, we would be feeling a lot better about things.  When the bell rang at 1 signalling the end of the class, we were surprised that 4 hours had already passed and relieved that it was over.

We went and had some sandwiches for lunch (a club sandwich for rob and and egg, cheese and bacon sandwich for me...I know...very guatemalan) while we tried to figure out what we dont know and how to get a grasp on it before tomorrow's lesson.

It gets pretty hot here during the day so we holed up in our room and hit the books all afternoon.  I made a bunch of flashcards and we spent all afternoon quizing each other.  I hope we can remember at least a little of it so that Carmen is impressed with us.

Its been brought to my attention that I really havent addressed the food on our trip.  We've eaten a surprising amount of pizza and burgers which I'm not proud of.  Tomorrow I will take pictures of all of our meals...dont be disappointed.

We figured out that we can easily spend twice as much on food as we do on our hotel room which is pretty tough to swallow, even when it is just $10 for a meal for the 2 of us....that would be 80 queztels and no matter how hard we tell ourselves thats not that bad, it just sounds like a lot.  Because this is such a touristy place, the restaurants can get pricey for a meal with some meat.  The guidebook led us to the Central park for some cheaper food.  We found some ladies at a table selling some kind of rolled tacos with a beef mixture.  We bought 3 of them, 2 fried plantain dumplings and a cup full of some kind of pudding for 8 quetzels which is $1.  We then went back for 3 tostadas for 5 quetzels and then rob bought an ice cream cone for 7 quetzels.  We are stuffed and its been over an hour with no stomach issues so we will definately go back there for more dinners.  We also found another taco joint with similar prices somewhere else that we will check out tomorrow.

My brain is jelly so I'm going to sign off.  I promise food pictures tomorrow...