Lots of meat and cable tv

In short, I´m enjoying time with my host family, trying to learn as much as possible with 5 hours of Spanish classes per day, and spending quite a bit of time getting lost in this city with very few street signs...

It´s funny, too, you know, because I´m pretty much catching up on a lot that I´ve missed out on over the past couple of years. Some pretty ´cool´ 9 and 19 year old host sisters, cable tv in my bedroom, a huge statue of Jesus on the mountain outside my window, plenty of time to sleep and read, and plates of mystery meat will do that, I guess... It´s good I decided to forgo the vegetarian thing before heading south cause I sure don´t see many veggies or fruit in my house. It´s kind of like living in the Midwest, but not really. Meat, potatoes, bread, and tea, you know, all the basic food groups. I love the food so far, really. I have to tell you, though, there´s something to the idea here of eating a little bit in the morning, a lot in the middle of the day, and a little bit at night. It just makes sense. And whereas I´m always starving and ready for a meal in the States, I´ve hardly felt hungry here. Anyway, enough about my eating habits...

The family´s been fun so far and quite hospitable. We live in a fourth floor apartment which is lovely and their dog, Firu, doesn´t bark at me nearly as much as he did when I first arrived. So far, I´ve avoided getting bitten by the pet parrot. It´s interesting because the family spends quite a bit of time watching TV and by quite a bit, I mean the TVs (yes, plural) are on all the time. Everyone has their own in their room, so that they don´t have to fight over what channel to watch, so I´m following suit cause that seems to be what we do. Right now, I´m justifying all the time laying on my bed watching Discovery and Nat Geo channels, as study time. We´ll have to see how helpful it really is. I´m bound to get sick of laying around watching TV quite soon... There are dance classes and running with my host sister on the horizon as soon as we think I´ve adjusted ok to life at 9,000 ft.

In other news, I think I´ve tried most of the typical foods so far from cinnamon juice to pork rinds (mmm...) and my Spanish is getting better slowly but surely. I´m finding my voice, which means I´m not listening all the time, so I´m happy that my courage is building in that way. I´m travelling thirty minutes each way each day to the west side of the city where there is an awesome little language school called Escuela Runawasi. It´s in a great little neighborhood of former mining families and I´m enjoying meeting the other students and profs at the school.

After an outing to an ´Ecological Park´last weeked to watch my host dad do a parasailing demonstration, I get to go to the farm where their oldest daughter works this weekend in the tropical (coca growing) region with my host mom. I couldn´t be more excited. Although Cochabamba is a nice city, I can´t wait to see the more tropical, quieter areas to the east.

I hope to be able to post atleast a couple of photos next time as well as my mailing address. I´m in the process of figuring both out. I hope you are well. Hasta más tarde and please keep in touch!