book learnin´

I had my first classroom spanish lessons in mendoza today. my teacher, a guy from buenos aires, is a very good instructor and i got a lot out of the session. The school was accomdating about me starting midweek, and i had 4 hours of class today to make up for not beginning earlier. 4 hours of spanish is excellent for practice, having to stay thinking in spanish for that long continuously. It´s a shame I don´t have a few more weeks or months to just study spanish, I could make a lot of progress in a course like this. Ah well, I´m very fortunate to have the time down here I do have.
I was planning on going to a bodega (winery) today, but it´s too hot to do much of anything, as it´s about 95 in the shade and pretty humid. Had a siesta instead. I had a great meal at the hostel last night, one of the best parts has been meeting other people travelling. Last night the group was a girl from chile who lives in london, a guy who goes to ucsf med school taking some time off from rotations, two dutch law students on holiday, a city planner from eatonville, WA (not making it up) and two argentines on holiday. Conversations tend to alternate between spanish and english, depending on people´s language abilities. Everyone went to the grocery store and put together a dish, and we had a big communal meal. It´s kind of a self-selecting group of people that tends to come to these places and who backpack around south america in the first place, and you end up having all sorts of interesting and unexpected conversations. Too hot to think of much interesting to write at the moment. Nos vemos.