Sucre - Bolivia

I´m starting my third week of Spanish lessons this week. I´ve had both morning (8.15am-12.15pm) and afternoon classes (2.30pm-6.30pm). There is a lot to learn! At the moment I´m learning what verb to use dependentant upon whether you are talking about something that is permanent or temporary (I know!!!!!!!). I´ve learnt to count to 100, I know my fruit, some parts of the body, and my colors. I´m learning how to string sentences together (which is not so easy), because there are masculine and feminine words, and it depends on what you put before it and possibly the words after it (whether its singular or plural also determines things), i.e. la nina es alta (the girl is tall) las ninas son altas ( the girls are tall) - Feminine. El nino es alto (the boy is tall) los ninos son altos (the boys are tall) Masculine. See what I mean - difficult!! The town that we are staying in in Bolivia (Sucre) is lovely, old colonial, and the weather during the day is really sunny and warm. I´ve had a cold on and off for a couple of weeks, so it will be much better when this clears up. I´ve managed to go to the chemist and explain in Spanish that I had a cold, cough and sore head, nose and throat. I had to have Ian with me to help me understand the responses, i.e. take this medicine three times a day, the tablets dissolved in a little water (I actually got this one on my own) in the morning and night and the powder morning and night. My only Spanish practicing practise out of class has been really when I have been on my own and trying to buy stuff. I am getting really good at explaining at the pharmacy (as I´ve been 3 times now!) what is wrong, how long for etc., ie.Estoy resfrieda (I have a cold). Hace dos semansa (I have had it for 2 weeks), hace una semana medicina (Already had one week of medicine), tengo no dolar garganta, solo mas tos (I do not have a sore throat, just a bad cough), en la noche no..... (in the night no..... then I give the charades for sleeping, and my hands in the air to show that I am very awake!). Then they talk a lot of which I do not understand!!! So I just have to repeat myself a few times, insist on medicine (a couple of locals, ie. my teacher and our hostel manager have both said no tablets), and then inspect the packaging to see Spanish any spanish words make sense. Last time I tried on my own I walked out with tablets that had the words for inflammatory on the packet (in spanish) and I knew straight away that it was wrong, and I could not be arsed going back in again! This time I knew that what ever long word in Spanish that I assumed was flem, I would say no to, because I guess it was actually meaning inflam... We´ve done a few activities over the weekends. Sat. we went to a local quarry where there are a variety of dinosaur tracks on a huge wall. The wall used to be the ground and a volcano and tectonic movement pushed it up and made it a wall. It´s very fascinating! The quarry is still being used, and tracks appear and disappear as the layers are taken off. Sun. we caught a local bus to another village, which was one and a half hours away. The purpose was to go to a Sunday market at Tarabocco. All I bought was a very small purse, and Ian bought a rug (as he is into his soft furnishings!). The girls that we went with (Naomi from Perth and Karen from Boston) bought heaps. Naomi has been in Ian´s Spanish class, so we have been spending loads of time with her. She is living with a family. A lot of students are. We tend to spend a lot of time with other students after class, and have meals with them. The meals all vary. For breakie (oh its getting exciting isn´t it!) at our hostel we get either yoghat and banana or somethings egg, and two rolls, and tea. I quite enjoy this. For lunch you have a choice of either having something of a normal portion, or having a 4 course cheap Bolivian meal, (as the Bolivians have their main meal at lunch time) and then something smaller for dinner. Bolivian food can be quite plain, no accompliments (sauces), potatoes and not much else in vegetables and rice, and meat. ie. for lunch the other day we had one chicken drum stick, potatos, rice and salad. Soup is a popular meal here. Now I don´t eat the salad here (anything not cooked, as most travellers do the same - Ian doesn't though, and does not seem to be having any consequences from it. Unless it is a westerner restaurant where they tend to let you know that they have washed the salad in bottled water. There is a really nice Italian place close to us with great pasta. There seems to be a number of Dutch and German owned places here too. We still have some museums to see, and one place plays movies some nights. Big night out Friday night. An American student called Karen whom we have been spending loads of time with, was leaving. The girls (incl. myself) all took a Salsa lesson and then met everyone else to go out. A couple of the teachers came too, and whilst at the karoke bar, the salsa teacher got me up (of course because of the talent he had seen in the class!) and it was great, he had me spinning like in Rock and Roll, and of course everyone thought it was great! Even a middle aged man, as he was leaving, came up and told me I was ....muy bien...very good. My calves and the backs of my knees today are VERY sore. I went home at 2am and Ian got home at 6am. Hence we had a huge sleep in the following morning, which we have not done since we got here, and only ventured out at 3pm for a huge and very nice pasta meal. August the 6th is Bolivia´s Independance Day so there has been celebration parades throughout the week around the streets. All the Schools and even the orphanges have been marching. Learning music must be very important here, as there were heaps of kids playing different instruments.