As with many classes I’ve taken, I’ve been a bit of an outsider.  When I came in, I had nothing but a few words of Spanish that I had remembered and incredible shyness. I knew that this would be a great challenge for me, because I had little knowledge of Spanish, and I am very used to being like a ghost in the room, listening to what people say.

The reason I came here was not only to learn Spanish, but to learn how to communicate. I’m not a person who absorbs knowledge just from reading a textbook about churches. My purpose is to live and experience the things that I learn, and actually see inside the cathedrals, and hear the people speak as I walk around throughout the city. When I came here, I got to see all kinds of things; cathedrals, museums, a restaurant in the middle of the desert. But mostly, I got to see these things with my very cool classmates, just talking, joking around, taking pictures with each other, and possibly dancing.

So now, I’ve been here for a week and a half. I came here knowing a few words. As I write this, I have learned a quite a few more words, and I’m now learning how to put them together.

There is something about this place that had always seemed mysterious to me. For me, and for the people around me, it is a teaching place. I think that this city, it brings out all of the things in your life that you have to face, because I’ve known more than a few people who have come here a little off of their balance, out of their comfort zones. For the past few days, I’ve been living with four other people, we were five totally different personalities just hanging together, and though we’ve only been together for a little more than a week, I can see that, in many ways, we’ve each shared something important, taught each other things. Sometime in the future, I would like for us to meet again, and see how we’ve turned out.