Smás

Okay, I had to put Sarah’s clever joke as the title. In Spanish, más means more so she proceeds to say “Would the Spanish word for smores be smás? Haha?

I would really love to upload pictures but I forgot to take into account that the internet is incredibly slow here and that may not work so well. I know blogs are much more interesting with pictures so I understand if you all get bored reading these lengthy things! I’ll try to include interesting stuff!

Sunday was pretty much a day of exploring downtown Copan. The city is pretty condensed so we are quickly learning our way around town. We know where to get ice cream and that’s all that really matter! Sunday is the day that all the people from nearby villages come and get their supplies that they do not produce themselves and the streets were pretty busy with venders and people. In the evening we ate Honduran burritos which are called “valeadas”. ¡Son muy ricas!

Today was our first day of class! We didn’t start until 1:30 so after a breakfast of pancakes we went to the bank (complete with armed men at the door) and to a coffee shop called Espresso Americano. Both places had AC!!

At school we began by taking a 5 page test to test our level of Spanish. My professor is Sara and she has been teaching at Ixbalanque for 10 years! We spent a lot of time just talking about her family, Honduran culture, and a few grammar examples here and there. The best part was BINGO with Claire, Sarah, and their teachers. I won. It was neat.

As I mentioned in my last post, the electricity shut down for most of the day. Apparently the electricity system is very old and since Copán Ruinas has grown in population, it shuts down a lot. The increase in electrical appliances doesn’t help either! Since there is no AC and everything is well lit, you forget it’s off until there is no way to brew coffee! The teachers at the school love their coffee and were dragging without it they said.

I don’t know if I mentioned it before but the coffee here is great! There are a few major brands from local farms and I really hope we can visit one because it’s really good coffee. Breakfast would not be complete without a good cup of Joe.

Welp, that’s all for now. I miss you all! Keep me posted or ask any questions and I’ll get back to ya!

World's Shortest Post

I'll update more later! We had no electricity all day so I couldn't write much! We have to go back home for dinner now so I'll have an extra long entry tomorrow!

Bienvenidos a Honduras!

We made it! *sigh of relief* Now Claire, Sarah, Chelsea, (our new American o is also studying here)and I are sitting at the school blogging (and non-blogging in Claire's case :)). I just had my first mango and it was awesome! Anyway, I know I'm going to leave out some but I'll try to put in the important/interesting pieces of our trip. I'll post pictures tomorrow because I left my cord at my host family's house.

Yesterday started with a 3AM wake up to get to the St. Louis airport where there was a huge line! Fortunately, our luggage made it on the plane and we got to our gate and had one minute to spare before they started boarding. Our Miami flight was a wee bit bumpy but it could have been way worse! It took less than 10 minutes to get through customs and we found Miguel (our driver) very quickly. We had a sweet looking bus/van thing with AC named Juanita. I sat in the front because I get motion sick and I am glad I did because the road to Copan Ruinas was curvy with lots of "tomolos" or speedbumps. They were so big in some parts of the road that it stopped our bus! Miguel spoke great English and told us a lot about the country on our 3 hour drive. Coke and Pepsi are equally marketed down here in case anyone cared to know! I made sure to ask him how to say queasy in Spanish so I could explain how I was feeling to my host family and they didn't think I was crazy.

Once we got to the school we immediately went to our host family's houses. Claire and I have separate rooms in the same house and Sarah is in a house right by the school. We each have a ceiling fan, a key to lock our door, a bathroom, shower with hot water, purified water (much like a culligan dispensor), and a dresser. It's very clean but we encountered a few pesky bugs that don't bite or sting. I went to ask what time it was so I could set my clock that didn't work and realized it was only 7:30! It was dark and we were exhausted so we ate dinner and went to bed. I'll leave out the details of being sick but I have a silly picture to post later.

A little about my family....My "mom" is a wonderful Honduran lady named Lorena and she has lived in Honduras her whole life. She has an 18 year old daughter named Suli who left for the capital city for the University today. She was sad but the school goes for 3 months and then they have a month off. Suli lives with her cousins in the capital city because the dorms are too dangerous to live in. Her two older sons live above us and we don't know much about them. They drive motortaxis in town. I'll post a pic later of one. Her husband sells large trucks or something and is a very nice man.

Today we are exploring the town of Copan Ruinas before we start school tomorrow!

Hasta Luego!

Errands, Errands, Errands

I'm making progress. I can walk into my room without hurting myself! Preparing for a trip such as this, there have been many preparations. It all started back at the beginning of Sophomore year when Sarah, Claire, and I decided we wanted to get some of our Spanish credit for our degrees at a language school. After talking to our professor we had decided that the Ixbalanque school in Honduras would be a great place to go. Unfortunately, we had the wrong web site and for a few months we thought that the school had closed its doors. Our next idea was Nicaragua. We did some researching and found a school that had excellent reviews called Spanish Ya. Shortly after discovering this school, we found out, (I can't remember how) that the school in Honduras did still exist! Thus, we had picked our school.

We thought the hard part was over but none of us realized all the little details that had to be worked out. Here is a list:

-Cheap airfare that didn't have us flying to 3 different countries over a 2 day span
-Finding a bus that coincided with our airplane
-Contacting the school to ask more questions
-Emailing the school on the right email account
-Payment to the school
-Where we would be staying

I'm sure I am leaving out many other things. As for now I have a few more things to do in order to feel more prepared for this trip and fortunately I finished a lot of them today!

-Mailing in textbooks for spending money in Honduras
-Calling the credit card company so they know I will be using the card elsewhere
-Shopping for trip necessities
-Cleaning my room so I can come home to a clean space
-Contacting Hobby Lobby to see if I will have a job when I get back!

Off to do more cleaning, then to Seward to visit friends and hang out with my roomie!

Here we go!

Although it is officially summer vacation, it has yet to sink in. At the moment I am sitting in a 2 foot by 2 foot square on my bed surrounded by what looks like the aftermath of a small tornado of a room. Oh well, that's besides the point of this blog. This week is going to be jam packed with packing, finalizing trip details, and re-packing my life into a suitcase for 3 weeks in Honduras!!

It's still sinking in that I am going to be living in a foreign country for 3 weeks in a town that speaks very little English. My two friends Claire and Sarah and I will be traveling to Copan Ruinas, Honduras to study Spanish at the Ixbalanque Language School. For 4 hours each day we will be instructed 1 on 1 (or the 3 of us with one teacher, we hope) and then we will be free to explore or do some serving of some sort at a school or what ever opportunities they have for us the rest of the day.

This blogging thing is pretty new to me (unless you count xanga back in middle school) so I'll try to keep you all updated. Just follow me on the side bar and you should receive emails when I update. Claire also has a blog on here called "in transit" and it should be under my favorites if you want to see multiple angles of our trip!

More to come later this week! Happy Mother's Day!!