Vacation Memories

The Blogfire Carnival this week is all about our favorite vacation - so here's mine!

One year my Uncle called me up and said, "How would you like to go study Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country?" Well what do you think I answered? Of course!!! It took us some time to iron out the details and pick a school to attend, but in the end we decided on a one week course of study, right before Christmas, in Yelapa, Mexico.

The timing couldn't have been more perfect for me. I had taken Spanish 101 the previous Spring, but hadn't been able to follow it up immediately with the next course. So this would give me a refresher course before I dived back into the schooling world.

Yelapa is located near Puerto Vallarta in the Bay of Banderes. To get there we took a 45 min boat taxi ride. The actually ride was pretty uneventful, but trying to get our luggage to the boat from the beach (wading) was pretty interesting! I tried to sit where I'd get sprayed. I love the water and it was hot!

We had decided that I would do a home stay to stretch my Spanish abilities and my Aunt and Uncle would rent a room at a bed and breakfast. This was just a vacation for my Aunt so they wanted a little bit more comfort and privacy than I had. I loved my family! It was a bit confusing at times, but I learned a lot from them. Plus I was right on the water! This shot was about 6 feet from the house.

This shot is from where my Aunt and Uncle were staying.

Yelapa is basically built where the mountains rush into the sea, so it's all hills! My legs were sooo sore the first few days, but my calves were in pretty awesome shape by the time we left! To give you an idea, just to go visit my Aunt and Uncle I walked up this hill...

And then up these steps...

And there was another flight of steps before we got to our class room! This was our teachers house, and the little canopy to the side is where classes were held. It was just three of us.

Funny story about our teacher, Jean, she's actually from Canada. So somehow we managed to come away from the week ending our Spanish sentances with the "eh?"

This is a shot of the beach. Yes, it was down another hill! If we wanted to eat we had to go to the restaurant on the beach. So we'd head over there for lunch every day. Sometimes we had dinner there and sometimes I had it with my host family. One staple for lunch was this lucious chocolate cake. Hey - we were on vacation after all!

The language course was pretty intensive. We spent the morning in classes and most of the afternoon studying. But hey, if your going to study like that what's better than a hammock on the beach right?

And for one last pic - this is me and my host Mom - Rosita!