In he Beginning

My first day of school was pretty brutal. I walked into the building and was very politely ushered into an office with Claudia (the smiling one above with the short hair), one of the administrative assistances, who summarily subjected me to a verbal Spanish exam that lasted just about five minutes. During that time I managed to forget pretty much every Spanish word that I have ever learned. But, not to worry, the operative phrase here is “no hay problema”, or “there is no problem”. As the day wore on things didn't get much better, because both my morning and afternoon teachers somehow managed to avoid using pretty much every Spanish word that I have ever learned. They both claim not to speak any English and had a way of kind of twisting the knife that Claudia had inserted between my ribs earlier in the day. It was all something like I imagine Marine boot camp must be like, but with polite drill instructors. But all's well that ends well. The after-class activity today was salsa dancing with Kristel (the smiling one above with the long hair), in which yours truly participated. For some reason my camera stopped working about that time. It sort of reminded me of the night my daughter tried to teach me the two-step when she was in college.