Spanish, Spanish, and more Spanish

For the past 2 weeks I have been in what most would consider a "super-intensive" phase of my spanish language instruction.  My day starts at 9am at the CLIC language school in the city center.  This class runs all morning and ends at 1pm.  I usually walk home for lunch and help pick the girls up from school, then around 2pm head over to The Alameda to meet with my private tutor for an hour and a half.  I usually get home around 4:30pm.  This makes for a bit of a long day but I am learning a lot.  Invariably, when I learn a new phrase or concept in class it seems to show up in my daily life.  The school seems to have a good handle on teaching relevant subjects and this definitely helps my focus.  Next week we have a few holidays here so I am going to skip CLIC and just meet with my tutor, then back to the full court press for a while.

A few nights ago we were invited over to my tutor Anna's house for dinner.  She is a very nice lady and wanted to have us over for an authentic home cooked Spanish meal.  We were not disappointed.  The night started out with iberian ham, cured tuna sashimi served with nuts, an amazingly flavored shellfish that resembled clams, and a delicious stinky cheese from the Extramadura region of Spain served with four different types of dried fruit.  The main course was essentially a paella but with more sauce and had prawns the size of a small cat.  We ate, drank wine, and talked for hours with Anna and her husband Jesus.  Not a word of  English was spoken all night and I am proud to say I did quite well.  We had arrived at 9pm and didn't really keep track of the time.  As the night came to it's natural conclusion I glanced over at their oven clock and, to my disbelief, it read 3:50am.  What?  That can't be right?  It was!  After 3 glorious hours of sleep, I was back at CLIC deliriously learning spanish grammar.  Good times.

As an aside, Anna's husband Jesus is not the son of God, but a psychiatrist.  I enjoyed talking a little shop with him and comparing notes.  He has a good friend who is a neonatologist and I am going to have a chance to tag along with him for his hospital rounds.  Should be interesting.

-Dave