A man alone - Part deux

Which brings me to Monday morning. I arrive on the night bus at about 4 am and proceed to the same hostel in Cusco as before for a few hours sleep before Spanish lessons are to begin. I woke up at about 8, stumbled out of bed for a long shower and ambled over to the school early for my 10 o’clock lesson which actually began at 8.30. but its ok because they forgot I was coming anyways. Great start!!!! At first they put me in a class with 1 girl who was learning the alphabet and then, 5 minutes later, the manager rushed in and decided to put me at a higher level. I was ok with this initially because, well, I haven’t found many opportunities in normal conversation to recite the alphabet. Its not exactly the best pick up line, is it.
Me: a, b, c, d….
Girl: Che?
So, I was quite happy with the higher level course until I realized that it was higher level. In the first hour, we reviewed, (not learned. reviewed!) present and present progressive tense including regulars and the 5000 irregular verbs. We then moved quickly into reflexives and past perfect and verb compliments. So, all in all, after only 5 days of lessons of Spanish in my life, I am supposed to know about 5 tenses, some 300 verbs and their regular or irregular conjugations in various tenses along with other necessary vocab. at least now I have a notebook and actual grammatical notes which I can reference.
So, everyday, mon-fri I had class from 8.30 until 1 with a bit of a break in the middle. The 8.30 was tough most days. Actually, all of the days. In the area where I stayed there were lots of small nice bars that serve beer by the liter (or litre ) and have live music. One bar called KM 0 had an InCredible band that played a set from 10 until about 1. after which I was obliged to follow friends (read here - actively encouraging them) to discos downtown which raged every night of the week until the wee hours. So, though I had the best of intentions, bed time was about 4am. Id like to say that my Spanish suffered because of this, but I think it would be untrue. My Spanish suffers because I suck at it. But I gave it a shot.
The classes themselves were nice. The teacher was 23 year old who had just finished studying to be a nurse but decided she liked teaching better. The students were a girl from Connecticut who is in s.america volunteering for a year and decided to learn Spanish first, a dutch girl who didn’t feel like going home and though learning Spanish would be a good way to get a job in peru, and an Israeli girl who is in between jobs at the moment and like me thought it would be a good idea to get a grasp on the difference between Italian and Spanish.
So, classes in the morning followed by a nice siesta until dinner time when I would meet friends and then go to listen to music.
On Friday, as part of a cultural experience, the class was supposed to go to the house of the mother in law of the owner of the school to learn how to cook local Peruvian food. My afternoon siesta lasted a bit longer than I anticipated though, and I arrived at 9.30 instead of 9 and the food had already been cooked. But, then I learned that the mama of the hosue had been a bit eager and finished cooking at 7. so it was more of Peruvian eating than cooking. That’s ok. This was followed by the obligatory journey to the disco where there was supposed to be salsa lessons. but, like the last few times that has been promised, it was a load of crap. So, with techo/pop/rock we danced until 5. (the mom of the house came out and she was grooving until 3am!!! Long after some of the youngens had packed it on. Rock on!)
On Saturday, I met a friend and we made some rounds of the town after a 3 hour all you can eat breakfast. It felt like the simpsons episode when homer goes to the all you can eat buffet. After 3 hours and about 3 jugs of OJ they were ready to kick us out. I was well stuffed. We did a bit of shopping, a bit of tea drinking, a bit of chatting, and generally wasted the day away. Felt good to take it easy. And I needed to relax, because on Sunday, I started an adventure.
More to come in part 3.

PS. I have bought a new orange fleece. Be prepared!