Salsa Dancing & School

I am halfway through my first week in Cuernavaca! It is unbelieveable to me how quickly time seems to be passing.

Today I finshed my thrid day of school, and I seem to be progessing at a decent pace. I am able to speak more and more everyday. My classes are all in Spanish and my family only speaks to me in Spanish so literally at least 8 hours out of the day I am only hearing Spanish. I am realizing how much French I know as when I am at a loss of how to say something in Spanish I tend to throw out some random French phrsases. So I guess right now I am speaking some sort of FrenSpanGlish. Right now I am trying to focus just on learning vocabulary, as the larger that gets the easier it will be for me to speak.

Yesterday was an exciting day as I took my first salsa class and went out on the town in the evening with some friends. The salsa class was awesome. The school I go to is also a regular University for Mexican students, and so the class has both international students from the Spanish School and also from the regular Universtiy. The teacher is a sassy young Latino who is an amazing dancer and literally make anyone feel like they are an amazing salsa dancer. The classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 3-4, and I plan on going every week. It's a great workout!

Last night I went to el Centro with some friends that I met at school. We went to an outdoor bar called Los Arcos which is a common hangout for the international students that are living in Cuernavaca. There was a live band that played salsa music. I wasn't ready to debut my dancing skills in public, so I declined a few offers to dance. After Los Arcos we went to an American dance club where they played classic songs like Hanson's "MmmBop" and NSync's "Bye Bye Bye", as well as modern favorites like Brittany Spears "Womanizer". It was fun being out with my friends but I ended up getting home much later than I had hoped. Plus the cab driver siffed us, charging $120 pesos to take three of us home that live within about 4 blocks of one another. Most cab rides, even at night, shouldn't be much more than $40 pesos. (Just to give you an idea, right now pesos are exhanging with U.S. dollars 14-1)

It has been wonderful staying in touch with my friends and family at home. I've had a few Skype dates, and luckily have been able to call and check in a few times as well. I am so thankful that I have wireless internet capabilities at my home. It makes the 1,400 miles I am away from home seem much more manageable.