My First Day of (Spanish) School

This morning after a nice breakfast of eggs and grenadas, Hubs and I got our notebooks and left the hostel for our first day of Spanish school. I was a little nervous, but the morning went by quickly and by the time we finished I could understand more of what my teacher was saying. She did not speak to me in English at all, except to clarify some vocabulary words when I was really, really stuck. There were a lot of awkward pauses where I did not understand, or where I had to stop and think about what I wanted to say. However, my teacher Aura was very patient with me and understanding. She sure understood a lot more than I did!!

After school, we took a field trip with some of the other students to a chocolate factory. Unlike Choco Museo (which makes truffles and other candy-like chocolates), Chocolate Antigua is a small business that makes traditional Guatemalan chocolate used for making drinks like hot chocolate. This chocolate was grainy- not smooth like Hershey's or other "eating" chocolate. We got to sample many different flavors, from cinnamon to coffee to chili to macadamia nut. We also were able to see some of the workers forming the chocolate into round tortilla-like patties. The warm "dough" reminded me of cookie dough.

After being patted down, each wafer was marked with an "X", thereby making four servings per wafer. Each package for sale contained four wafers. They were then wrapped neatly in a square of brown paper, placed in a cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon.

After visiting the chocolate place, Hubs and I went to the market for some more fruit. We found a beautiful old arch on the way back.

After taking the picture, Hubs pointed out some puddles where I had been standing. Apparently this arch was a popular place to take a leak. 

A not-so-nice part of Antigua...