Back to School! (Cindy & John)

Today was our first day of school (Spanish language school that is). We are taking group lessons 2 days per week at Spanish School for Residents and Expats. We used to take “first day of school” pictures of our kids when they were young, so we thought we would do the same.

John and Cindy on their first day of Spanish school

We were so excited to be returning to school after so many years we decided to sport some new backpacks from Radio Shack! We couldn’t believe that Radio Shack was still in existence here, and when we saw they had backpacks, well, we just couldn’t resist!

Stylish Backpacks by the American Designer, Radio Shack

We’re walking everywhere possible, and school is no exception. Like good students, we practiced walking the route the day before school started, and timed it at 50 minutes, each way. That was a Sunday, and we figured we needed to add a few minutes for traffic on a Monday. But, as it turned out, we needed to add more time after Cindy broke her toe in a bed-making accident.

How did that happen? The apartment owner who provided the furniture outfitted the bed with an over-sized frame that had legs not only on the four corners where you would expect them, but in the middle, as well. Both of us had run into these middle legs multiple times, cursing their existence but not really taking action, nor learning corrective avoidance tactics. That changed with Cindy’s broken toe. We MacGyver’d a Walmart pool noodle into protective pads around all of those legs to minimize the damage of certain future encounters.

Purchased Pool Pads Provide Perfect Protection

With adequate icing, Cindy was able to fit her foot into her sneaker, so we proceeded to school on Monday morning, as planned. We met our fellow classmates, 3 other non-Spanish speakers, all US expats – a couple from Minnesota and the husband of a Costa Rican government worker. Our teacher, Wagner, is very good, and runs the school from his home.

Wagoner Freer photo-bombing John’s class notes picture

We survived the first class, learning how to say introductory phrases, like, where we are from, how many kids we have, and that we are happily married. (No other choices given on the married option.)

On the 50+ minute, broken-toed walk home, we had a little more time to pay attention to our surroundings. We spotted this Bird of Paradise flower, a first for us, and what we thought was a good omen.