Juana, our Spanish teacher at Simon Bolivar Language School has a high positive energy. The minute she introduced herself, J.J. and I immediately felt comfortable.
Instead of using textbooks for our lessons, we requested that J.J. and I learn Spanish by having conversations with Juana. After she reviewed the verb "ser" or to be, we jumped to different topics including countries of Latin America, famous people and main products from these countries. While our conversation is still fractured and often had to revert back to English, Juana, formerly a teacher at the government school was patient and accommodating.
Including 20 minutes of break in between, our private lesson from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm was focused and extremely productive.
Reception area
View from the 3rd floor where our class room is located:
J.J. and I agreed that the Spanish we had learned many many years ago and dormant in our brains is slowly trying to emerge.
Garbage is picked up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Here is J.J. taking out our trash. To access our apartment, we have to climb 3 flights of stairs or a total of 42 steps one way. The stairs adds to our daily exercise routine.
Don Colon is the owner and the chef of Restaurant Don Colon where we had dinner. It was about 6:30 pm when we entered the restaurant. That is too early for people in this part of the world to dine. The usual hour of dining is between 7:00 - 10:00 pm.
My sea bass was cooked to perfection and J.J.'s pasta Alfredo with shrimps was very tasty. Don Colon wearing a Panama Hat introduced himself as we were leaving the restaurant. We promised to return to dine again and the next time I will interview him for my blog.
Aloha -- Cathi
