Day 2!

This morning we had to be up at 7am for breakfast and then had a walking tour of some important places in the city. We saw the plaza de armas, which is a bus station. As we went on we saw the plaza de toros, teatro de la maestranza and la Torre del Oro. We passed many different shops such as un puesto de churros, fruterias, y supermercados. And finally we ended up at the Center (CC-CS head quarters basically, where we will go for our classes).

Once we arrived, we got a tour inside the building, which is a typical Spanish building with the central patio with a fountain and many, MANY different colored tiles. They were beautiful! Finally we had to sit and take a placement exam, which I was not expecting. I guess it was just to see how well we know the language and such, just making sure we would be able to take the classes we signed up for. We had a short meeting after the exam about our classes and computer access etc…

We went back to the hotel to get our things and then made our way via taxi to meet and move into our family’s home! When we got there the cab dropped us off at the wrong building so we had to walk with our 2 suitcases each around the block to find the right building; A little old man helped us find our way, he was very nice.

When we arrived upstairs Chata, the housemother, greeted us. She showed us around and where we would be staying. We unpacked and made ourselves at home and experienced our first siesta. Lunch was at about 2 followed by resting or watching TV. There are 3 people that live in this home (5 including us). There is the mother, Chata, one of her daughters Maria who is 34 and her son Olivardo who is 11. Chata has another daughter too, Reyes, who is 31 but doesn’t live here and sometimes joins us for lunch!

We then made our way back to the Center for a bus tour. Trying to get there was quite the adventure. We were walking and many of the streets here are not labeled well if at all. The street names are usually on the buildings that are on the corner of the street, there are no poles clearly labeling each street and cross street. To say the least it took us a half an hour. The bus tour was nice to just sit and listen to the guide explain different monuments but you could not take the best pictures and it made us very sleepy!

To end the evening we walked back home, which was much easier to find our way. Had dinner around 10 with our family and then went to bed. It was quite an exhausting first day.