Primera dia de clase (First day of class!)

School has begun! Our first day of class was lots of fun for everyone. Tyler woke up early for a 12.9 km run (that's 8 miles). Four observations from running in Antigua:

1. While the city is beautiful, one cannot run and observe it - the road is SO uneven that one must watch their feet the entire time to ensure an ankle doesn't get twisted!
2. Dogs are everywhere! But they really don't care that you even exist as you run by them
3. The city is empty at 5am, suddenly at 6am the town came to life and the streets and sidewalks were full of people
4. Nothing is better than running to the fresh smell of bread being baked in the panaderias!

Tyler returning from his run

After the run everyone got ready for class. Breakfast at 7am and then off to class. We arrived at the school and were each given our teacher. Next we walked five minutes down the road to a park where we sat across from our teacher at a small table and worked on vocabulary, grammar, conversation, and played some games with our new language. Emma's teacher is Carmen. Emma learned the days of the week and colors - including gold and silver! Josiah learned colors, animals, and the alphabet. Tyler's teacher is Noemi. He reviewed verbs, ser/estar, opposites, and general vocabulary. Nicole learned basic conversation and ser/estar (Tyler also had to play memory... he knew the words but could not find the cards!). We all went home with homework - we are definitely back at school!

After school was lunch followed by a tour of the city led by the school. Below are some pictures of our tour:

La Iglesia Merced 

(built by Spanish in 1500s and restored after earthquake)

Famous arc behind us with volcano in the background

(need to do again, closer to arc and no clouds)

Another Spanish Church that was destroyed in an earthquake

To help, a bird was posing as the head of this statue 

Us in front of some ruins

After the tour it was homework! We made hundreds of flashcards and are working on learning our new vocabulary. Emma even learned a song for the days of the week! Ready for day two!