Phillip and I have settled into a nice routine during the week. Nothing exciting, so no posts until today. Phillip continues his vigil of the construction of the 
condo in the next block. Our 6th floor balcony gives him a great view of the progress and the workers. Here, they are putting in plastic-wrapped spacer blocks before they pour the concrete floor for the 3rd story of the building. The plumbers came this afternoon and worked. Soon, Phillip will get to see the concrete poured for this floor. Exciting times in Bahia!
My Spanish class is going well. I understand more and more each day. I have noticed that learning a language isn’t quite as easy for me as it was when I took college Spanish for one semester in…. 1975. Ancient history, right? Back then, students used antique instruments called paper and a pencil.
Back to the present… my instructor, Sunhe (pronounced Sun-nay), is, in addition to being an elementary school teacher and a mother of three, active in the local community theatre. She invited Phillip and me to their performance
last night. Comedy is universal. Phillip barely understood a word they said, but the comedy skits had him laughing. This production, held in the university auditorium, consisted of six one-act sketches, two comedies and four dramas. I could follow all of them except for one of the dramas, when the microphones the actors were using malfunctioned. Unfortunately, that was a two-actor play and Sunhe was one of the two actors. She was in the two comedies, so we did get to see and hear her act. The picture is from one of the comedies, set on a bus full of characters. If you look carefully, you can see the chicken!
Today, we rode the ferry to the town across the bay, San Vicente. The ferry, which costs $.30, holds twenty passengers for the ten minute ride. The operators hand out life vests as you board the boat. Our boat didn’t sink, but as you can see in the picture, it rides very low in the water.
Once in San Vicente, Phillip and I walked around the town. I got a picture of Phillip, sitting on the seawall, with Bahia in the background across the bay. San Vicente is much smaller than Bahia, so our walk didn’t take long. We ate lunch in a restaurant there, then rode the ferry back to Bahia. The whole excursion, from leaving the condo to returning to the condo, took about two hours. I said San Vicente wasn’t very big!
I looked for something to take a picture of there, but the most interesting and colorful thing in the town was the ferry dock! We will probably make the ferry ride again next Saturday, as the buses and taxis to another town we want to visit, Canoa, depart from San Vicente, not from Bahia. Today’s trip did make us appreciate Bahia even more, its cleanliness, the care that the Bahians take with maintenance of their parks and streets, and the activity and people who are here versus there across the bay.
Ah, the universal language of concrete. And see if "rabano picante" gets you anywhere with horseradish (accent on the 'ra-'). You could always ask for wasabi.
ReplyDeleteWell it seems you guys picked a good city to stay in, with all the construction going on at least you know this city is growing and getting bigger and will end up having more and more things to do as the years go by.
ReplyDeleteI wish the prices of things here were the same price as things there, come on are you kidding , only .30 to ride a ferry, wow cheap.
Glad the language classes are going okay, very soon we non-speakers of Spanish won't understand you at all.
See ya for now, Your Cuz.
Well, sounds like you're on the right side of the "tracks". :-) It looks like such a lovely town.
ReplyDeleteMy girls would have so much fun on a 30 cent ferry ride! However, it sounds like you get what you pay for, lol, with the life jackets for just in case!
Is Phillip finding that the building methods are very different from how we do things here, or about the same? I, too, love watching buildings take shape, and it would be extra fun to see it on a day-to-day basis. We got to enjoy watching the new Stadium in Arlington go up from week to week as we did our grocery shopping at the Walmart across the street from it, so I can somewhat understand Phillip's enjoyment. :-)
So glad to hear you're doing well in your lessons! Maybe you can be the Spanish teacher for my little homeschool girls in a few years? :-) With their Diego and Dora intake, they should have a bit of a head start! Keep up the good work! :-)