Tulum and Café Sociál

Fantastic!








































































What a great day! I'm so glad I got to Tulum - it was on my "must see" list. I will be back later to add details and more pictures. We took the collectivo van which dropped us quite near the entrance to the ruins (it was a five-minute walk) and only cost about 50 pesos.





Café sociál at the Azotea bar was cool. The rooftop location has a fantastic view and great breezes. It's definitely worth checking out!

Gorditas

Another fun cooking class - this time we made gorditas, a thick tortilla stuffed with refried beans.



After you make the dough, you roll some into a ball then make a depression in the middle which you fill with refried beans














You pat them out until they are flat (making sure that the bean filling is covered up when you're finished, so it doesn't leak out)


















Then fry them in hot oil


















Top with sour cream, cheese, and a sauce whipped up in the blender (a clove of garlic and a chile blended thoroughly with a little water, then some whole tomatoes, which are slightly chopped)







Voilá.....gorditas!



After class Sheila and I took a cab to Plaza las Americas, the mall in Playa, which is pretty similar to any small city mall in the U.S. The cineplex is very nice, and movies are only about 40 pesos. I understand that most American films are presented in English, with Spanish subtitles.

Futuro de probabilidad

I guess I must have been out sick the day they taught "el futuro de probabilidad" at Gavilan, lol.

A new week means new group assignments and new incoming students. I have Israel for grammar this week, and am in a group with Claudia (Swiss), Madison (American) and a new person, Gabriella (Brazilian law student). I have Raúl for conversation again this week - I hope we don't run out of things to talk about ;)




Checking the schedule on Monday morning; students are usually assigned to new teachers each week, and might be moved to new groups as well














Tomorrow is cooking class!

Update on Sunday - Katherine and Peggy (a new student from Colorado who is also staying at our hotel), persuaded me to leave my cozy room during a tropical storm to watch soccer at a restaurant/bar on 5th Avenue. I'm glad they did; it was a fun experience, even though Mexico lost and has been eliminated from the World Cup competition.


Shopping on 5th Ave. in the rain; I have a poncho but it is yellow and makes me look like a very short version of Big Bird


Afterwards Katherine and I shopped in the rain, and later that night we all went to Johnny Rocket's (!!!) for milkshakes with my friend Sheila from Gavilan and Frank, a student who is here from Holland learning Spanish in preparation for his upcoming work on the reefs. He is going to spend several months in Mexico compiling statistics about marine life as part of a volunteer group. The students at Soléxico have such varied reasons for learning Spanish - muy interesante!

The Mayab

The storm is still toying with us. The torrents of rain come and go, but the wind has been steadily strong since last night.

Since I'm confined to my room at the moment, I will share a bit about the hotel with you. First, the full name is "Hotel Real del Mayab," which may be a bit of hyperbole. There are no down pillows or 1000tc sheets in the rooms. The staff, however, is as friendly and helpful as you could find in the world's most luxurious hotel.















The hotel entrance















The breakfast room - fruit, cereal, toast, and coffee are included















My room - second floor, last room on the right


















One of the two beds in the room - the other is serving as additional closet space
















The vanity, which also serves as a desk; there is a television above. The closet is to the right of the sink, and the toilet and shower are in a separate little room to the left. There is a small safe in the closet.















I can't believe how comfortable this rocking/reclining chair is when used with the vanity bench as a footstool :)
















Babelfish?

Saturday

It appears that this storm will be with us for a couple days, and we probably won't be able to go to Tulum tomorrow. I hope that we can go another day this week - maybe if there is a sunny day we can leave at lunch time and call it a field trip for conversation class.

Katherine, a Soléxico student from Switzerland who is also staying at Hotel Real del Mayab, carried through with cenote dive she reserved on Friday. At dinner tonight she said the caves were fascinating, and she had a great time, completely unaffected by the storms raging above!
















Katherine on a much sunnier day, leaving our neighborhood bookstore on Calle 1.

Like all the Swiss students I've met at school here, Katherine is already multi-lingual, able to speak French, Italian, and English in addition to her native German. It reminds me of a funny joke I heard at school the other day:

Q: What do you call a person who can speak three languages?
A: Tri-lingual
Q: What do you call a person who can speak two languages?
A: Bi-lingual
Q: What do you call a person who can speak ONE language?
A: American!!!

Tonight we walked across the street to an Italian restaurant on 5th Ave. for dinner and had a very nice meal. Viewed from the outside, the restaurant appears to be very small and ordinary. Inside, however, it was a little like eating at The Rainforest Cafe! There was an actual tree in the middle of the greenhouse-style dining room, and we had a beautiful view of the jungle outside, with rain pounding on the roof and dripping from the tree near our table! If I go back, I'll be sure to take pictures.

Ka-boom!

The rain finally arrived in force! When I left the hotel this morning it was coming down in buckets. Fortunately there are lots of taxis in the area of the hotel, and the fare to the school is only 20 pesos. There was a break in the rain when we got out of class, and the weather was beautiful - several degrees cooler than normal, bright and sunny.
















Los Portales on Calle 6 - the people who work here are really nice, and the Pechuga de Pollo a la Parrilla is great (40 pesos for a huge serving of chicken with rice, black beans, and salad)

We had lunch at Los Portales then went our separate ways; I walked back to the hotel via 5th Ave. and passed the chapel just as a wedding party was exiting, accompanied by mariachis all dressed in white - it was beautiful! Unfortunately I forgot to put the sd card back in my camera when I left this morning, so I don't have a picture. The ones below are from earlier in the week:































Chapel on 5th Ave., and a telephoto pic of a different couple getting married there earlier this week



















One of my classmates finished her three-week stint at Soléxico today, and will be returning to Georgia tomorrow to prepare to compete in the Junior Miss pageant there; buena suerte, Ashton!

Stormy weather ahead?

Today there has been a lot of thunder and the sky has looked very threatening, but so far we have only had a brief shower. I wonder how the storm forming in the Caribbean will affect us? Since I arrived here about three weeks ago, we have only had a few showers - none of which lasted longer than fifteen minutes. I hope my luck holds out! FYI, you can buy vinyl ponchos at the drugstores on 5th Ave. for about $4US.

Solatino was offering another tour to Soléxico students this weekend, to Cobá and a cenote, but once again they were one person short of the minimum. Katherine, Sheila and I are now planning our own excursion; we are going to take the collectivo van to Tulum on Sunday, weather permitting. I'm really looking forward to it - judging by the pictures I've seen on line (including the one at the top of this blog), it is a beautiful place. Keep your fingers crossed for us, please!

Imperfecto progresivo y pretérito progresivo

Another day, another tense or two!


















As I mentioned previously, my current teacher for both grammar and conversation is Raúl. He is just as friendly as he appears in this picture, but he still keeps us on our toes :)



















Mi compañera de clase from Switzerland, Claudia, gave me permission to post her picture here. She is adding Spanish to the five languages she already speaks! Her goal is to work in the tourism industry.

Our classmate Ashton, who will be a high school senior this fall, is leaving at the end of this week - we'll miss her! She promised to write a piece about what it's like for a young person to attend Soléxico, but she's a pretty busy girl, so it might be a long wait, lol.

I have just a few additional pictures from Chichén Itzá and Valladolid that I haven't posted here. If you're interested you can see them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/52457965@N00/sets/72157624193218021/

Hasta luego...

Ceviche

We learned how to make ceviche en la clase de concina today, using cooked shrimp. There was a lot of chopping to be done, so all ten participants were busy! Some of you from Gavilan may recognize the lady in the blue shirt :D
















Rafa explains the first rule of cooking: ¡No hay chile, no es comida mexicana!




Cooked shrimp, cilantro, onions, cucumber, and a chile were chopped and mixed in a bowl, then lime juice and a little salt were added. Each serving was topped with a twisted slice of fresh orange and served with unsalted totopos (tortilla chips). Muy rico :)


Rafa makes it look easy, but I know that in the home where my friend Sheila is staying, for example, the woman of the house cooks all day, making everything from scratch. Sheila has promised to write a piece that I can publish on this blog describing her homestay; I am looking forward to sharing it with you, especially the Gav students who are considering an immersion trip in the future. Coming soon, I hope!

El lunes

A jumbo iguana giving me a dirty look for disturbing his siesta at Chichén Itzá

Another week, another group of people at Soléxico! There appear to be many new students, including a family group from Texas, a man from Holland, and some new Swiss people.

This week I have a new teacher, Raúl, for both grammar and conversation. We went over the homework, studied ya, ya no, todavía, y todavía no, and spent much of the class time chatting, using various tenses. Later, in conversation, we discussed our favorite vacations. Thailand was quite a hit :)

I've signed up for cooking class tomorrow, and I can't wait to see what we make!

I have a few more pics and details about the Chichén Itzá trip before I close...
















The plaza around El Castillo is now about three feet below ground level; it was once covered with white stucco, according to the guide. There were also at least 100 paved roads (sacbeob) in the city. One of them goes to the Caracol, or observatory, which is about a ten-minute walk from the Cenote Sagrado.

















The Cenote Sagrado is shown above. Archeologists have found quite a few human bones in this cenote, along with jade, copper, and other objects which were precious to the Mayans. The water appears to be green, which the guide said was caused by something blocking the flow of fresh water from the underground river system into the cenote.

















After a buffet lunch in Chichén Itzá featuring two local specialties, cochinita pibíl y sopa de lima, we drove to Valladolid, one of the oldest cities on the Yucatán Peninsula. Unfortunately we were not able to tour the colonial-era Cathedral de San Gervasio, shown above, but the exterior was quite impressive!

Tomorrow I will post a picture of the cenote at Valladolid. It also appears to be green from above, but I was told by people in our party who swam there that it was actually quite clear when you were close to it.

FYI, the tour operator, Solatino, discounts this tour for Soléxico students; the price ranges between $80 and $60US, depending on how many people sign up. It includes transportation by air-conditioned van, entry into the Chichén Itzá site, a buffet lunch, a stop at the zocalo in Valladolid, and a swim at the nearby cenote. Not bad!

Sunday already!

Temple of the Jaguars on top of the ballfield wall, at the entrance











The top of El Castillo, the main temple with a depiction of a skull in the masonry












In case you thought El Castillo wasn't all that steep, check out this picture I took looking up the steps!


































The Temple of a the Warriors/Thousand Columns; the detail pic above shows some of the decor on the temple, and you can see a few of the columns in the pic below.














The Tzompantli; the word usually refers to a skull rack on which actual skulls taken in battle are displayed.
























A detailed pic of some of the skulls;
it is said that each of them is different!

Chichén Itzá

Chichén Itzá is phenomenal. I can't imagine how the indigenous people who lived outside the cities felt the first time they came across these magnificent buildings.






















These huge snakes run along each side of the ball field. There is a "hoop"about 25 ft. above the playing surface on each side. This one is about where the tour group is standing.

































More pictures tomorrow!

Laundry day

Where else can you drop your laundry off and pick it up washed, dried and neatly folded for $3US? Thanks, Karim!




















View of the "campus" from the veranda of the admin building

It was a quiet Friday afternoon on campus today; many people left school immediately after the morning classes to begin their weekend plans or to prepare to return home tomorrow. We actually had a large group for conversation this afternoon, though, because we combined several classes to play a fun game called 101 Mexicans - a Mexican version of Family Feud. Sadly, my team (Equipo Manuel) came in second, but we made a valiant effort :)

This morning our grammar group continued to talk about the imperfect, with a different teacher - Alfonso. It's interesting to have so many instructors, and to have the opportunity to experience hearing so many different accents.

Later two of my classmates and I went to a nearby restaurant called El Fogón, where they make pastor. ¡Muy rico! The pork is cooked on a spit, topped by a pineapple. There is a charcoal fire in the stainless steel table, and the heat is reflected by the metal shield behind the meat. The temperature where the chef was working must have been at least 120F.! It feels dangerous just walking by it on the street.


















This sandwich is called a "gringa." I admit it - I wanted to try it because of the name! :) It's made of pork, pineapple, cooked onions, cilantro and melted white cheese, layered between two white flour tortillas, and it is very good. We also had queso fundido con chorizo, which was excellent. Prices on the menu range from 7 pesos for a taco pastor (two small white corn tortillas topped with sliced meat, cilantro and onions) to around 400 pesos for a large kebab feast which I'm sure feeds several people. The gringa and the tortas de pastor were around 30 pesos each. ¡Muy barato!


Tomorrow is our big trip to Chichén Itzá, so it's early to bed for me tonight. I have to be at the school by 8:00 instead of the usual 9:00 a.m.

Hasta pronto...

Gooooooaaaaaaalllllllllllllll

In today's World Cup match, Mexico beat France, so there was much celebrating this afternoon. In fact, when Mexico scored the first goal you could hear the cheers all over town! I don't believe that there are any students from France at Soléxico right now, so we don't have to worry about hard feelings.

Our first lesson in Book 2 was on the imperfect tense - ¡fácil! We did several pages of exercises and re-wrote a story, converting it into the imperfect tense. Oddly, what tripped me up today were some handouts she gave us about pronouns that seemed to have been made for elementary school students, lol.















The entrance to the school


In place of conversation class this afternoon I went to the talk about the upcoming excursion to Chichén Itzá. I'm very excited about it - we studied it in SP2a and I thought it was really intriguing. I have to admit, though, that I am a bit relieved that visitors are no longer allowed to climb the steps up the pyramid - it looks sooooooooooo steep!

Hasta mañana....