Monday Night Football in Mexico

Just got back from the "sports bar" Steve and Kent go to ..... not a "bar" really, more a big room with tables and chairs in broad daylight, but it features a huge flatscreen HD TV. Was restless after a full day of classes, sick of Spanish, and just wanted to get OUT of here and see and do something else, so I went up there with them. The proprietor put out bowls of chile-lemon peanuts for us (lots of peanuts grown in the mountains around here, as well as coffee and tobacco), and we had a few beers, and the guy was kind enough to change the channel from some gawd-awful soap opera to American football. There was only one other guy in there, who was too busy talking on his cell phone to watch TV anyway. The new guy, John arrived late last night -- of course we few who are remaining were dying of curiosity and sat there at breakfast waiting for him to make an appearance. He is an older man from Davis, CA ... yet another Californian, gad, this makes 4 of us who have been here. Kim from Dublin, Mary Ann from Monterey, me from Suisun, and now John from Davis. What are the odds?! I was hoping to check out his level of expertise in the language, but alas, the day was so busy, and he was out all day getting the grand tour, that I never got a chance to talk with him. This morning I was assigned Antonio as an instructor, and wow, I love him! Feel like I made a huge leap forward today. Unfortunately, I will have to share him with John tomorrow, and I'm a bit nervous about it, since John is supposedly quite advanced, which I certainly am not. We are supposed to be grouped by ability, so ....hmm.....I am wondering if my abilities are being over-rated. But I'll just muddle through -- it's worth it to have Antonio. For the "out and about" lab I went with Emilia to the huge supermarket, which is out of town aways on the way to Sam's Club, Costco and Walmart (yeah, I know, I know.) Emilia (one of the instructors) has a wonderful sense of humor and is quite zany, so we had a great time. Afterwards I was remembering all the stuff we talked about, made fun of, etc, and it was weird, because it seemed as though we had been speaking English, but of course we'd been speaking Spanish. But it was just that comfortable for me. So I guess this "immersion" stuff is working on some level. None of the instructors speak English, so lapsing into what is comfortable is not really an option. After I left Kent and Steve at the sports-bar I walked down to the "malecon", the main street along the Gulf lined with coconut palms, and went to a bookstore I'd been meaning to check out. Just at dusk, huge ships out on the Gulf, the palms silhouetted against the sky, the air so soft and warm. Then came back here and tried to call home with a phone card that has 900 minutes on it, but for the second night in a row the public phones seem to be not accepting phone cards for international calls. May have to break down and use the school phone and pay Eric and Linda back -- hate to impose like that, but oh well. Am going to study as much as possible for tomorrow, then get to bed early. More tomorrow!