Whoooo - time flies! I can hardly believe that I've already studied Spanish in Antugua for a whole week now. But then again, there was always much to do. I build a kites, saw it not get into the air, dressed up for Halloween, spend the weekend at the beach and generally enjoyed the nightlife in Antigua.

School is really quite good. I had four hours of Spanish every day, just me and my teacher. Classes, if you want to call them that, are held on a big patio where everyone has his own table and little niche to sit, talk and study. It's really quite nice. I'ma bit peeved, though that I'll have to change teachers on monday. I really liked Edelma, but unfortunately someone who had been Edelmas student earlier had booked her in advance. I think that really sucks, both because I liked her and because she knows exactly what I've already learned. And with a new teacher I'll have to start again all over. Grrrr. But hey - I can't change it anyhow and I just hope that my new teacher will be cool as well. They all seem to be quite alright. What I found a bit shocking is, how little the teachers actually get paid. As far as I know, they get about 1.5 USD per hour, i.e. around 30 USD per week. Considering that we pay the school 90 USD per week, that's really bad. After all, the school does not supply any books or material, either. The teachers actually have to buy these themselves or get given them as presents form their students, which is also quite common. The other thing I think really sucks is that the teachers don't get paid if you don't show up fo a lesson! Imagine that - the school simply pockets the money!

The girls and guys

Most of the people studying here are really cool as well. I suppose that's hardly surising, after all we all are in a far away country where the weather is pretty much perfect, living is cheaper than at home and you get to hang out with other people who share your interests. Besides, there is really no pressure on you how much you want to study. And so, if you don't feel like doing a lot on any given day, then you just tell that your teacher and you go to the market together or discuss the newspaper or something easy. The downside of being in Antigua is of course that you don't have to speak a whole lot of Spanish beyond "Una cerveca por favor". and even that you can say in English more often than not. But then again - I'm also here to have a good time and I think I've actually picked up quite a lot in this first week. Finally those five years of Latin come in useful!

The house

I'm also rather fond of the house I'm staying in. I decided not to stay with a family but in a student house, which from what I hear is pretty similar to staying with a family, except for that you have more privacy. After all, we also have a family of sorts at the house during the day, who cook for us, do the laundry, clean, etc.. They are really nice and the food is excellent! The people I'm sharing the house with are also quite nice. There is noone that genuinely goes on my nerves, and I really liek and hang out a lot with one of the guys.

A fight in the dark

Something scary happened the other night: I was woken up by someone entering my room (I hadn't locked the door)! And against the backdrop of the moonlight outside I could see that it was a guy. Instinctively I thought that someone was trying to rob me and so I pulled my knees up and kicked the intruder into the chest with full force, sending him crashing through the room and into the door. Only then did I realize that it was actually one of my housemates who was so drunk that he had gone into the wrong door. I'm still pretty proud of my reaction, though!

The kites that wouldn't fly

Tomorrow is All Saints (Todos Santos) which over here is celebrated with a really sweet ceremony: Everyone builds huge kites and flies them over the graves of their ancestors, as high up as possible to talk to them in heaven. And to make sure that they understand you properly, you attach a little written message for them to read, just in case you grandparents managed to take their reading glasses with them into the afterlife. One day after school, we also got to build kites, much smaller ones though. Boy, had I known how much bloody work it is to build one of them, I seriously wouldn't have bothered. And then, the next day, when we went to a hill outside Antigua, there was absolutely no wind. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. So all our beautiful (and in my case not so beautiful) kites stayed at the ground. That was a bit depressing. But n the way back we gave them to some kids who were just happy to get them and run around with them, so all the work was good for something after all.

My first Halloween!

The night after, there was a Halloween Party at school and everyone in the house did his best to look as scary as possible with the limited supplies we had. It turned out quite well, I think. Ben was a bit peeved, though, since everyone asked him later, why he didn't get dressed up. And they were not kidding! Well, since he had been partying for almost a whole week, it was a bit hard to know that his deathly pale face was a mask.

Black beach and tiny turtles in Monterrico

Yesterday I joined a group of other people from school on a trip to Monterrico, a small beach-town just two hours away from Antigua. The cool thing about it is that the beach is pitch-black. All the sand originates from the volcanoes and so it's little wonder that it's not white. Unfortunately though that is he only cool thing there. Cause at seelevel it is frigging, boiling hot! And humid! Antigua, which is more than 2000 meters above sealevel is definitely more my cup of tea. Still, it was nice to have a weekend at the beach. And the scenery on the way was just stunning - I think this is the greenest country I have ever been to. Another quite amazing thing you can see in Monterrico is a turtle-hatchery. As the names says, this a place where turtels hatch. And to get money for the hatchery, they are doing something that probably makes all zoologists cringe, but which is a great success with the tourists: For 20 Q they put a freshly hatched, teeny, tiny turtle in your hand and then you can let it go and see it scramble for the ocean. And since they release the turtles every Saturday at the same time, they are calling it a "race" and the person whos turtle reaches the water first, gets a t-shirt as a price. I told you, it would make zoologist cringe! But seeing those tiny turtles is really quite amazing (btw. they were out of turtles when I showed up, so I didn't get to hold one).

The only real disapointment was the hotel we stayed in, which really sucked. But then again, why did we pick a long weeked to go top the beach when everyone else is going. Still, when I was lying in the tiny, stuffy, humid room that I had to share with three guys, trying to go to sleep while the mosquitoes went through the mosquito-net in regiment-strenght and while next to us there were a party, barking dogs, crying kids, a domestic fight and even a gunshots, I did long to go back to Antigua.