Learning, Walking and Sweating!

Actually, the title should be "Aprendiendo, Caminando y Sudando!"  But since many of you don't understand Spanish, I will stick with the English version!  These are the best 3 words to describe our trip last week to Puerto Rico!  From the moment we landed in San Juan, we were walking.  We did take a taxi, ride some buses and hop on the train, but we walked to get everywhere.  And the minute you began walking, you were sweating!  It was hot and very humid.  However, I was not complaining (at least not too loudly) because of the previous post I did about our trip (if you recall, I was very excited that it was WARM in Puerto Rico!).  

Don and I started language school Monday morning. We walked to the school (stopping by McDonalds for coffee!!) to begin our assessment and fill out paperwork.  We ended up in the same class with 2 other girls.  Our teacher was amazing.  He taught us completely in Spanish for 3 hours everyday.  Then Don and I had signed up for an extra hour of tutoring which happened right after the group class.  It was very challenging but so good.  

We were pretty excited after the first day until we went to order pizza for lunch.  We did not understand a word the girl behind the counter said to us at Papa John's.  I began our group class on Tuesday morning in total discouragement.  During my tutoring time, I told the teacher what had happened.  He began to explain to me how the Puerto Ricans spoke Spanish.  This was to be a theme throughout our week.

After class on Tuesday, we headed out to explore.  We took the train, waited for the bus and then walked to Old San Juan.  This part of the city is very historical and so beautiful.  We visited 2 old forts, walked around the cobblestone streets, and ate at some fun places.

However, once again, if the Puerto Ricans spoke in Spanish to us, we had a very hard time understanding them. Notice I said 'if'.  In most cases, they took one look at us and spoke in English even when we first approached them in Spanish.  

On Wednesday, we went on an excursion with other students.  It was a great experience and we had lots of fun.  However, our guide (who spoke to us in English the entire time) told us that Puerto Rico was not a good place to learn Spanish outside of the school.  This just confirmed what we had been discovering.  The Puerto Ricans use a lot of Spanglish.  Many of the people speak both Spanish and English especially in the tourist areas.  Also, the Puerto Ricans tend to drop some consonants when they speak.  

For instance, we are taught to say 'buenos dias' for good morning.  The Puerto Ricans drop the s's at the end of both words so it sounds like 'bueno dia' which is not hard to figure out.  However, when they are dropping the letters at the end of several syllables all at the same time, it was really hard to understand.  

Despite all of this, this was exactly the trip that Don and I were supposed to take.  The school was awesome and our teacher was so good.  He encouraged us and gave us the motivation that we needed to keep learning on our own.  He helped us to see where we needed to focus.  

And we had an awesome time together especially the last night!  We moved to a hotel with air conditioning! We checked in and took a nap in the wonderful coolness of our room!  We walked along the beach at night and again in the morning.  We rented a car and went on a day trip before we left on Saturday.  It was a blessing to have some down time at the end of our trip.  

We have much more Spanish to learn and we know that we will be learning forever.  But we are very thankful for the time we had to focus and the motivation we received to continue moving forward!  Puerto Rico is a beautiful place and we really enjoyed our visit and experience on the island.  Plus they had amazing coffee! ;)