As I suspected, the directors/professors did not let me switch classes today. I had to wait for Teresa (the director) and she was a bit late and then she told me there isn't space (physically) for me and that I can change to classroom two on Monday. This made me pretty upset since I've been trying to change classes for four days, and I couldn't spend another day in intermediate so I decided not to go to class today. I called Pepe first and told him the situation. He told me that Sarai would go today and talk with them. I told him that I was too frustrated to go to class, and since we only need 80% attendance, I skipped.
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I can't believe I've been in Cuba for five days already! Today I began to get out and explore more, and mostly on my own because I'm afraid that no one else seems to want to do the things I want to do here.
Unfortunately it rained again today. I hope that this weekend it doesn't rain because I went to add my pictures to my computer and it made me sad--I don't have many and not really any good ones. I'm hoping to change that this weekend. I'll be bringing along my big camera for some "serious photography". But of course it will help out a lot if it doesn't rain. Today went a bit better than yesterday. I talked to Pepe and he said it's fine if I want to do things with Madison or by myself. I can go around by myself during the day and if I want to walk to meet up with Madison or whomever at night he is okay with that.
This morning was a bit annoying--the director of the Spanish program at the University said that I can't change to the advanced-level classes because they're all full, but other people from my class were able to change yesterday and didn't come to intermediate class today. I only went to intermediate class because my professor told me that I needed to give it another day, but obviously that wasn't true. At least she went with me to talk to the directors twice and finally they said that it might be possible to change on Friday. Today was the first day of Spanish class in Havana and it didn't go well. It started off with Lauren and I being late to our classes because we still had to register for them. Madison, Brittany, Duane and I were placed in the intermediate level according to our test scores from yesterday and the rest were in the advanced level. However, after about 10 minutes in my intermediate class I knew I wanted to change to the advanced level. I was having fun--we were playing a game in which we described one another, guessing at each other's names and lives, so we were laughing a lot--but the errors that the other students were making were very basic and there were large gaps in the conversation as people thought of the words to say. I hadn't done this level of Spanish activity since high school, so while it was fun I wanted to switch to the advanced level so I could be challenged and learn more.
Café Miramar was a lot of fun last night! We drank mojitos, daiquiris, sangría, and Cuba Libres and had ham and cheeses para picar. I sat with Madison and Duane and had quite a bit of fun. The music was really good. I am normally not a big fan of jazz (i.e., I hate it) but I really enjoyed the group last night. It consisted of a girl who sang, played some electronic music rhythms that I think she'd created, and played the drums. Her partner was a guy who played the saxophone. The music was a unique mixture and not too "jazzy" so I enjoyed it. We all agreed later though that the girl was obviously way more talented than the saxophone player; he probably could have been left out of the whole thing and it would have been just as good!
It's my first day in Cuba and it's already really interesting! I'm tired because the journey of the last few days was very long. I liked Miami, especially Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. We had a very early flight from Miami to Havana--the flight only lasts about 45 minutes. Basically as soon as you've started flying parallel with the ground you start the descent. We were picked up at the airport and chauffeured to our houses in two vans.
[Edit: I recognize that the language in these first few entries is very basic. It's because I wrote them in Spanish and have translated back to English here. My Spanish really improved over the course of the trip, and the quality of the entries improved likewise.] :) I really like my Cuban host family. There's Lute and Jorge, the grandparents who we met first because the others were at the beach today. Now we've met the others--Ailyn, our house "mom", her husband Luis and their young children, Sergio and Bryan. My room is better than I expected--I have my own with my own bathroom, a mini fridge and a wall A/C unit. Two other girls, Lauren and Rachel are staying here too, in a different room. They went on the Guatemala trip together last year.
I am excited to announce that I will be spending a month in Havana, Cuba this summer, studying Spanish, learning about the culture and generally enjoying this currently-in-the-spotlight travel destination! (If you're a facebook friend or Twitter follower, you definitely already know this and are aware of my excitement about it). :)
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