Immersion Aversion

Hola! Bueno! (Hello! Good! These are the two words I've really got down so far.)
Did you ever step out of a Starbucks and find yourself swept up in parade among towering 20ft. tall puppets? I think that is what really happened to me last night but it's kinda hard to tell reality from fiction at the moment due to complete culture shock.

San Miguel is a little bit Emerald City, a little bit San Francisco, and a little bit rustic old Mexico. The colors are more vivid than anything you'd find on Van Gogh's pallet. Around every corner it seems there is a little lovely surprise. And maybe the most surprising of all is how San Miguel has overturned all of the misconceptions I had about what it would be like here. It's cleaner, friendlier, and safer than I could possibly have imagined.

Immersion, on the other hand, is a LOT harder than anything I had imagined. These people are hard core. I was hoping for a relaxing, educational experience but Maria Guadeloupe, our wily old housemother, has been speaking to me only in Spanish since I arrived and my head feels like an overfilled helium balloon about to explode from information overload. As you can guess, we haven't gotten very far with bueno and hola as our only means of communication. She's a sweet woman though, and every so often she throws me a bone and says something in English so I can follow the conversation.

Rena was apparently studying her Spanish for Gringos book a lot harder than I was. The first night at dinner she shocked me when Spanish started spewing out of her mouth rapid fire. It reminded me of Linda Blair's scene in the Exorcist sans the green bile. Mama Lupe is trying to get me to talk but, it's the strangest thing, German words are the only ones that come to mind when I try to respond.

One more day until school officially starts. I am terribly afraid they will take my Chatty Cathy Translator doll away and put her in a more advanced class! Will write more after we get underway next week.