Pencils sharpened, spatulas out!

This is the ILERI Spanish school. It is a bit of a hike from our homestay as we are sitting on our terrace taking this photograph! 

We arrived on Monday at 8.30am sharp to find we are the only two in the class.

Marianela (the owner) gave us an introduction and overview of the week.  She then introduced our teacher.

This is Melanie who taught us for the first two days.  We have been learning verbs, sentences and useful phrases like "Quero una copa Sauvignon Blanc - mucho grande por favor".  We don't think we need to translate for you.

Melanie has made the course fun and it has been good having her undivided attention.

Whilst RM has been busy in the classroom, HJ has found her way to the cocina (kitchen).  Here she is learning how to make 'pattacones'.  These are peeled and chopped green plantain which are fried, pressed into patties or pots and then re-fried, covered in salt and eaten with a tomato salsa usually containing meat, pork or fish.  We sat down with Stacey after cooking to practice our conversational Spanish. This was the end of day two.

This is our host family, Emilsa and Antonio (Emi and Tony). They are very friendly and fortunately Tony's English is very good which helps.  We are practising on Emi.

We have our desayuno and cena with them and last night cracked open a bottle of duty free prosecco with them which they loved.

RM behind Tony's bar - they had obviously heard about us!