Christian Jessen » learn spanish http://christianjessen.net A Dane starting business in South America (Santiago de Chile) Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:47:09 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Studying Spanish in Cusco, Peru http://christianjessen.net/studying-spanish-in-cusco-peru/ http://christianjessen.net/studying-spanish-in-cusco-peru/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:31:02 +0000 Christian Jessen http://christianjessen.dk/?p=98 I arrived to Cusco Monday morning, and met with Jude whom I studied Spanish with, in Sucre. We decided to take another week of Spanish lessons in Cusco since we felt we needed to get some more lessons about the verbs in the past. We left Sucre with the same level of Spanish, so it made perfect sense to find a school together.

We spent the first week doing absolutely nothing, other than finding the school and arranging to start at Monday. I had a really bad week in Cusco – started by having problems with my stomach, and using most of the Monday in bed. Then at Wednesday night we went out drinking, and got the worst hangover in a long time at Thursday – so that day where pretty much just spent by pitying ourselves. Finally we came to the weekend, and I ended up lying in bed most of the weekend with a fever. I’m usually never sick at home, but this is the 2nd time I’ve got a cold in 2 months.

The second week pretty much just went with going to school and relaxing a bit in Cusco. We went to a place called Protectoyu Peru, with an awesome teacher called Yuliana. It doesn’t have a lot of student or big facilities, but it is a very nice small place with cheap prices and great teachers. I can recommend this place if you are a couple of people looking for a place to study, but if you are travelling alone, I’d recommend you to find a bigger school, where you meet some more students. We really learned a lot this week, and I feel it was great for my Spanish with another week of school.

I don’t like Cusco that much as a place to live and study though. It has a big nightlife scene, but most of it is Gringos coming to Cusco for the Machu Picchu and other tourist sites. It is kind of a mix between a big city like La Paz and a small city like Sucre. If studying for longer period of time, I’d rather recommend one of these cities. If your more into the big city life go to La Paz, but if you don’t mind the quit state of mind in Sucre, where the decent clubs only open Thursday to Saturday, go study there instead. Bolivia is both cheaper, and does not have as many gringos as Cusco.

Another thing you should do while in Cusco, is walk up to the Cristo Blanco, the big Jesus-statue on the top of the east-side hill. You can take the stairs up there from the end of Av Tullumayo. Alternatively you can also take a taxi or one of the special “buses”, but it is quite expensive, and takes over an hour. The stairs will get you up there in about 20 minutes, in a much less touristic path. It is absolutely a visit worth, as the view of Cusco from up there is absolutely amazing.

You can find more photos from Cusco here.

Cuzco seen from Cristo Blanco Cristo Blanco Viva el Peru - From Cristo Blanco
]]> http://christianjessen.net/studying-spanish-in-cusco-peru/feed/ 0 Learning Spanish in Sucre, Bolivia http://christianjessen.net/learning-spanish-in-sucre-bolivia/ http://christianjessen.net/learning-spanish-in-sucre-bolivia/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:30:33 +0000 Christian Jessen http://christianjessen.dk/learning-spanish-in-sucre-bolivia/ I’m not really doing that much here in Sucre, besides learning Spanish at Academia Latinoamericana de Español. It feels like I’ve learned a lot in a week, but there is still very much to learn. It’s very hard to speak Spanish, and explain things, because of my very little vocabulary. I’m learning so many new words every day, but it is so hard to remember them all, and to construct sentences when you don’t remember half of the words. I can understand a lot more Spanish than, but it’s still difficult when they speak so fast.

Mirador over Sucre

Mirador over Sucre

I found a nice gym right in the plaza, on the top of a center. It’s pretty cheap, 75 Bolivianos for a month, including entry fee. Compared to Denmark, it is really old equipment, mostly just weights and bad/broken old machines. But it got most of what I need, and it is nice to train with weights again. Otherwise I’m mostly just doing pushups and exercises for the stomach in the hostels when I’m travelling around. The gym has the most amazing view over the Plaza and the city, and walking up all the stairs is a nice warm-up exercise…

This weekend I went out eating at Los Balcones, a restaurant at the Plaza, with a lot of the other students, because it was the last day in Sucre for a guy at the school. Afterwards we went to Locots as usually, where they have happy hour from 22 to 23.
Rest of the weekend, I spent some time walking around town, and taking some pictures. The Mirador was really beautiful in the nice weather; it gives a really good view of Sucre. I also love spending time in the plazas and at the big market.

Tracks to nowhere Bolivian flag on Island Strange sky-rainbow Train graveyard - old train Trucks working on Salar de Uyuni Fernando lifting car Flamingos at red lagoon Puma
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