Checking in

Just wanted to post. The most exciting thing that´s happened since the hike Saturday was 2 days of conjugating verbs, including the ever-elusive gustar. I vaguely remember not getting it in HS and college, but today I think it clicked. Third time´s a charm, right?

Sunday I was going to check out a church that a friend recommended not far from where I live, but I was exhausted and not ready to find the place and listen to a sermon in a foreign language. I still hope to visit, but my weekends are filling up! That afternoon after lunch, which serves as a main meal, mi familia asked if I´d like to go shopping with them. I think Sunday´s are big shopping days as most of the markets are open and everywhere we went the traffic was heavy. The town we went to is known for it´s shoes. Apparently they get the patterns from Italy and then make high quality replicas. I asked my host-sister why women wear heels everywhere here when they´re so uncomfortable and she laughed a little and said, "we´re used to torturing our feet." They were beautiful shoes, though. On the way home, we stopped at an orchid store, which was the highlight of the day for me. It was a store full of every color and type of orchid imaginable, including one that hung from a planter and had blossoms that looked exactly like humminbirds. By the way, the hummingbirds here are huge! They´re at least double the size of our dainties in Oregon, and much more rugged looking - not as pretty. On this trip I discovered my host-brother speaks pretty good English. Perhaps he was in his tour-guide mode as he told me about a mud-slide that killed 500+ people in the 1990´s and changed the landscape significantly. He´s quite a history buff and I wish he´d speak more English to me!

I´m learning that each town is known for one thing or another. Tomorrow after class some of the Floridians and I are going to the town where intricate jewerly is made. Then we´ll visit a town where they prepare woven materials, then to the shoe town so they can see the orchid store.

The school doesn´t have any sponsored excursions this weekend, so my friend Lundon and I are going to explore some ruins and go for a train ride called The Devil´s Nose. The more I consider the name, the more I wonder at what I´m getting myself into, but no matter what, adventure awaits!

-Shannoncita