Quetzaltenango, Friday

0958 Unpacking a bit and topping phone up before heading out. Minor fuckup - I've lost the key to the padlock I use for the chain I like to use to fasten my bag to a bit of furniture in my room. (Yes, it's not perfect, but it's an extra line of defense against theft.) I do have a spare, and there's a slim chance the key will turn up somewhere in my bag at some point, but it's not ideal to be without a spare. At least this didn't happen while the chain was locking my bag to some bit of furniture when I needed to get off.

1301 At La Venesa bakery/coffee bar. Having coffee and a tostada integral.

Been to four Spanish schools. Want to write some notes before seeing more. All found on Google Maps with wandering.

Couldn't find La Paz school despite considerable searching.

1st school - Si* - seemed perfectly nice, about 5-10 students including one family. Showed me round. No discount for multiple weeks. 1150 for 25 hours a week (4.5h clases a day, 30m break - this seems standard). Classes 8am-1pm tho. :-( This seems semi standard. I didn't ask about other times but given size of school and structure of classes prob not possible. Activities perhaps mostly free here which may account for possibly higher price.

2nd school - M*C* - shown around by slightly 'floaty' woman who was helping out but spoke to possibly owner after. Maybe 15-20 students, some live in school. All places BTW offer homestays but I declined this. 8-1 is standard but I think they were willing to do 2pm-7pm for me; brochure does mention some afternoon classes 2-5. 25h classes 900. Owner did say something about she was taking students on a hike Sun, but I think all offer activities like this including weekend. They have lunch together on Friday.

3rd school - Ut* - entrance upstairs from one end of a big covered street of bars. I asked and 8-1 is standard but they thought say 10-3 would be doable. So far this is probably the most intuitively preferable time offered. School looked OK, has a roof terrace, maybe 10-15 students (I was told but can't remember).1075 a week but your fourth week is only 775 and subsequent weeks 980 and you don't have to book 4+ weeks at once to get this discount.

All schools seem to have wifi and coffee and so forth.

4th school - C*M* - only one to not actually show me round the school. Indigenous woman selling textiles in the large street entrance. Did have a fluffyish greyish cat on a table, though it looked a bit aloof and I didn't stroke it. Classes seemed to take place round large courtyard. 1680 a week for 25h, 8-1 or 2-7. DELE accredited, I think. 75 discount per week *if* you book for for 4+ weeks in one go. Of the four schools I think this is the most 'professional', but it's unquestionably expensive - I obviously want 'quality' tuition but to some extent I don't necessarily need these frills - I just need a competent teacher to work intensively with. Gut feeling is that this is ruled out initially, but if after a week or two somewhere else I feel unhappy it might be worth considering this (or some other very professional school)

General observation - if I am doing afternoon classes I won't usually be able to participate in any activities anyway.

Of these gut feel is for the 3rd, if they can do me a 10-3 schedule. I need to sleep on it (I think all said they would let me start midweek and more to the point I could sign up over the weekend by e-mail or in person) and see if this is maybe the worst of all worlds. I'm not overly interested in activities but some of them are little trips to see places and that might be nice. And there's obviously the social aspect. On the other hand, am I so bothered about these activities I want to be getting up 7:30 at the latest five days a week for 4-5 (maybe more) weeks?

If I do 2-7 I will essentially have no overlap with morning students, and apparently most students prefer mornings. If I do 10-3 I may - though may not - have some limited overlap with morning students. But I may not overlap with *anyone* else.

If I do 8-1 I have afternoons free. If I do 2-7 I have mornings free, but I am unlikely to get up early enough to go anywhere, and I'd be worried about not getting back in time even if I did. If I do 10-3 I don't have to get up too early and I can do any homework before going out at night, if I want. On the other hand I don't expect to be going out every night; even if I could just decree my perfect social life you'd be looking probably only one weeknight out anyway.

If I do 2-7 I suspect I'm going to end up bumming aimlessly around the hotel and/or having lunch before class and nothing more, then by the time I finish it's already evening.

I was hoping to get some limited social stuff out of this, if only acquaintances to chat with during the break. 8-1 is the obvious winner there, but it really doesn't appeal in terms of getting up in the morning. 2-7 has the advantage of being semi-standard so there might be other students on my schedule but I wouldn't want to count on it, it does rule out any organised activities which I am semi-paying for and it seems to leave me without much of an evening. 10-3 lets me get up at (for me) an 'I made an effort but one that feels diligent without being painful' time (TBH I often seem to be getting up 9:30ish anyway) and leaves me the late afternoon free, but it may be absolute social death due to no schedule overlap with other students and still probably rules me out of most activities.

I've nearly finished here, let's go interview a few more schools and then I can chew over these issues again later. I suppose worth bearing in mind there may be some flexibility - though I don't want to screw my teacher around too much - either on a day to day basis or by saying "I will switch to 8-1 for this week".

Oh, Quetzaltenango Spanish School was shut presumably for lunch; I could have tried ringing bell but didn't. The posted hours 8-12 and 2-6 didn't sound great for having 5h classes a day, though maybe they do given how standard it is.

1529 At small restaurant for another coffee; tempting to eat but not that hungry and will perhaps go to hotel and charge phone - something has caned the battery but no way to really tell what, I don't believe what Android is telling me.

Spoken with several more Spanish schools. Some notes:

5th school - K*B* - a forbidding and locked double-car sized door. No one answered bell after a few tries. I was about 35 seconds from leaving when a woman turned up - she wasn't a student and wasn't a teacher but didn't actually tell me what she was. We had a chat and eventually a bloke turned up and let us in. I might infer they were the owners but not certain. No other students (this was about 2pm) but that's the whole thing said before. They had two dogs - one 15 with no teeth and (I noticed) huge claws on its front paws which probably needed cutting - and a white cat with black splodges. Seemed quite nice people and we discussed things a bit, they do 8-1 and 2-7. USD110 for 25h a week. As I left the woman asked me for my phone number, I was going to give her my e-mail address but in the end she gave me hers. She offered to take me on some kind of tour up to some lake she had been telling me about. Not clear if this was conditional on being a student there and not sure what to do (I don't want to be rude) if I choose another school, but I should try to forget this aspect of the thing for now.

6th school - S*L* - this is the one I had found on web other day. No one there, I could have classes 8-1 or 2-7 but not eg 10-3 due to lunch. Q990 for 25h a week. Bloke seemed nice enough, we discussed things a bit and basically all students do morning. Didn't exactly show me round the school but I sort of did see it as we wandered between rooms getting info.

7th school - P*W* - this is in guide book FWIW - did seem very volunteeryish - USD150 cash for 25h - again 8-1 or 2-7, they said some of the activities (which were very volunteery) were in the morning, that I would be able to sometimes do mornings if I wanted or eg if an activity was a film they could show it me in the morning (tho I can sit and watch a film on my own at hotel or in London flat) - TBH I think I'm not volunteery enough to go with them, nice enough as they were - I don't really think I could take full advantage of the flexibility unless I was doing worthy things. Didn't show me round the school.

8th school - K*SS - wasn't looking for this but walked past (oh, I did walk past some other schools this afternoon on the offchance they'd look "busy" and it being afternoon that would be a good sign, P*W* was slightly, others weren't so I didn't ring bell etc) and they said 8-1 or 1-6 in the window. Bloke I talked to was nice enough, didn't show me round as such. He said 2-7, I didn't ask about flexibility. USD110 for 25h. I think most students prefer mornings but he said some who are volunteering do that in morning and have classes in pm. Incidentally he said weather would prob change soon (somewhat contradicting what woman who gave me phone number said during our chat) and it would be cold at night and in morning and warm in pm. I asked him if this made it better or worse to study in am or pm but he was quite vague, perhaps fair enough saying it kind of depended on the individual student and not quite getting my point.

Will resist temptation to waffle much more now, finish coffee and go home. Starting to think I should maybe bite the bullet and go for 8-1. I don't want my entire social life to revolve round the school and other students but it may be best socially to do that. I could possibly switch schedules from one week to another but probably not keeping the same teacher. Getting up at 7:30 or earlier would suck, but it would reduce temptation to drink too much during week and unlike when I'm working it would be voluntary, which makes all the difference. It would also be nice to go have a coffee and/or a croissant and/or lunch at 1 and feel I have the afternoon before me. I am also tending to wake up (and stay in bed half asleep) relatively early - though more like 8:30ish if I had to guess - anyway.

Oh, 6th school I asked about doing eg 9-1 so only 4h a day, and they said that would be fine and of course cheaper. I suspect most schools would do the same. But I'd really like to take this opportunity to bolster and escalate my Spanish with a sustained effort which might carry over into more sustained effort when I'm back in London, so I'd kind of like to do 5h a day.

Will go back to hotel and maybe have a Spanish lesson with my regular teacher and then come out (after dark, possibly) for dinner and a mull, though no alcohol...

Place is corner 12 avenida/3 calle - I asked the slightly bored looking woman at counter for coffee and she said Q3 almost like she was making price up on the spot. Will make it Q6 on my modified tipping rules. Cheapest coffee yet. Can't see name of place from inside...

1609 Back at hotel. In room 12 as I was at last hotel. Haven't put names of earlier hotels on here as I may want to go back to them and for completely voodoo half-remember-reading-something reasons I am not putting the names of hotels on until I've left them. I have my old e-mails if I ever do want to find out and I forget to put them on the blog later.

1927 Back where I had the last coffee. I had earmarked a cheap comedor type place a few blocks from the hotel on going back earlier, but when I came out it seemed to be shut or not exist. I think I went the right way but can't be sure. Couldn't see much in the way of eateries, especially cheap ones, so this will be fine. I did well coming out after dark. Not too scary although a few streets a bit deserted. Not intending to wander excessively at night until I get my bearings and can do it without needing to dredge phone out all the time to see where I'm going.

Talked my Spanish teacher's ear off about schools etc today. Also got her opinion re tipping and I think my as-yet-unwritten modified algorithm is acceptable.

Quite a few bars just off central park which don't look *too* intimidating but I am not drinking tonight, maybe not at all this weekend. I may be able to get some beers in with other students or something and I don't need to rush to get my feet under the bar, so to speak. Saw somewhere in that street of bars I saw while looking for schools which had live music Fri and Sun at 9pm Sun. I just *might* go for literally one or two beers Sun - given I will prob be starting school the next day - but I may give this weekend the complete miss in baulk and gently experiment next Fri/Sat/Sun if nothing turns up socially with the school. I don't want, as I said earlier, my social life to revolve round the school but it's a nice simple place to start.

2014 Back at hotel. Food not bad, not huge portion but at 20 for food and 5 for coffee can't complain, made it 35. Smallish steak, black beans, cooked veg (onion, tomato, plantain) and tortillas. Fingers crossed this doesn't go bad on me. Be good to have that place as a cheap fallback option if I'm going to be here for a while.

2035 Just washed some trousers in sink. Think it worked but the sink is (and was before I started!) very loose on the wall; I wedged it up with my knee so I could do the wash, but not sure how prudent it would be to do that regularly. A small black mark against trying to stay here for n weeks if the school plan works out. I'm sure there are laundries in town but given the sock incident the other week I'd really rather avoid using them if possible.

Going to indulge in one of those over-priced packets of peanuts (this one with cranberries aka arándonos rojos) I bought back in Antigua.

2133 Dithering re Spanish school. While it sort of sucks I am thinking I will give the 8-1 schedule a try. This however knocks out the 'easy' decision to go for school 3 because they were willing to offer 10-3.

However, that said, my own inclination and also something I read while trying to look for reviews is that whichever school you go to you will probably 'fall in love' with, so it sort of doesn't matter. It's a question of getting a *good* result, not the absolute optimal school. (One of Paul Graham's essays touched on this kind of thing in an informative way, but I can't remember the name right now.)

While it's complete chance the order I went in, all else being equal I kind of prefer going to one of the schools I saw in the morning because I got to see them during the 'active' 8-1 period. Not to say the others aren't good etc. Do feel a bit 'guilty' (irrationally) about not picking school 5 where they were very friendly, *but* the fact the place was locked up over lunch-ish for whatever reason doesn't bode entirely well. I also have no idea how many students they or 6 or 8 have - again, because I didn't see them in action.

School 1 seemed fine but with maybe 5ish students including an entire family studying there I think it may be a bit *too* small and intimate for me.

So it sort of comes down to 2 or 3, although I'm not super happy about ruling out the others on such lightweight grounds.

The thing about choosing 3 is that although I don't intend to go for the 10-3 option, *if* I can't stick 8-1 there's the possibility of changing times, probably having to change teacher but not school. Then again, is that such a huge bonus? If I have struck up acquaintanceship with any 8-1 people, I would hardly see them in school on the 10-3 option anyway, so I could more-or-less change school and see them just as much (be that little or a lot) since I would really only see them outside class times. I suppose any weekend activities would be with them, but this is tenuous.

I must also say that I didn't see huge numbers of students at 3. A group of 3-4 were being set up to watch a film in the lounge when I arrived (a bit odd in itself when 'most' people have classes 8-1), and when I got the tour round the rest of the school if memory serves - and it may well not, having seen so many - most of the classrooms were empty. (I did like the roof terrace at 3, I'm a sucker for roof terraces in any context.)

2 did seem to have a fair student population, I think I personally saw 10-15 at least. The 1-1 tuition was *not* in individual private rooms; this wasn't the case at 3 either, but there seemed to be quite a lot of spare space (the flip side of apparently few students) so you might get more privacy.

I am a bit unsure how/if I could sign up for 2 if I wanted to, given IIRC they said it is closed tomorrow for some national holiday and the founder is off on that hike on Sunday. But I could *probably* e-mail them.

(I find myself wondering what I would tell school 5; after that woman gave me her contact details I feel I 'owe' them an explanation, rationally or not. But I shouldn't let that influence my decision.)

2 does have some accommodation on site; limited, first come first served and not sure if it has private bathrooms. Not sure I would want this anyway - it would be like living in the office - but it does open up some options to help make the 8-1 schedule more palatable.

3 had that 'arcade' full of bars nearby but really that's irrelevant. I'm sure there's scope for going for a beer after class anywhere, and also if I am doing 8-1 that's not such a great idea anyway. Could also be noisy, tho prob not an issue with 8-1.

Spanish teacher suggested 2pm-5pm might be not devoid of other students, but I really want to do 5h a day as think waffled above so it would be 2-7 and that seems very unpopular.

Even allowing for the 4 week discount at 3, school 2 is about a tenner a week cheaper (10% less) - not a huge factor but not nothing either.

Need to remember if I am not happy I can leave at the end of the first week. But I may feel pressure (self-generated or from school) to 'try a different teacher' the following week. But I also suspect that whatever decision I make and whatever teacher I get, unless the school or teacher is terrible, the decision will 'grow its own legs' (to quote Robert Cialdini) and I'll feel it was lucky I made it.

As a side point from that, *if* I am really not happy with my teacher, I maybe need to say something after a couple of days, so if a change of teacher doesn't help I can then ditch the school at the end of the week, rather than giving it the whole week with the first teacher.

Age range at school 2 was by my perception quite wide, which is probably a good thing. The students in the lounge being set up for the film at 3 looked young-ish.

To repeat myself endlessly, whatever I do I am going to be rejecting perfectly good schools. That is simply not avoidable. I have semi-avoided this in the past by just walking into the first school I saw (Oaxaca) or browsing online then booking before I arrived. In many ways I've benefited from being able to at least try to get the feel of the schools in person today, it just means I also feel the choices open to me more strongly too.

2232 School 2 is maybe a couple of hundred metres closer to this hotel than school 3, but even with an 8am start that is not really significant, and any such advantage could easily switch if I change where I am staying. (Been reading a book while mulling this over in background. Not sitting actively thinking this out.)

Speaking generally, while I would like to eg go back to Lake Atitlan for some hiking and maybe do Acatenango near Antigua and perhaps visit Coban or Tikal, all that lot would probably fit comfortably in 2-3 weeks. Plus I can of course come back again if I don't get it all in. So *if* I am really getting into the Spanish study, I could stretch to 6 or maybe even 7 weeks of study. But I don't want to put pressure on myself to do this, and I may well do some time in a school in South America after Christmas.

Suppose for the sake of argument that I *know* in advance there will be no social benefits whatsoever from whatever school I attend. Would this influence school 2 vs 3? I suppose it would fractionally argue for 3, as I'd have the 10-3 option open - but as waffled above, any such switch is almost like starting over again as I'd have to change teacher, so I could just change schools from 2 to 3 if it turned out there was absolutely no social aspect to school 2.

And notwithstanding my reluctance to start at 8, as I said above I think it would feel quite satisfying to be going for lunch at 1 with the bulk of the day's work done, even if I did just bum the afternoon away drinking coffee or whatever.

I am also assuming it's low season here just as it is elsewhere, so presumably student numbers are a bit low - in fact school 7 pretty much told me this in passing, in context of allowing me some flexibility. In a way this is good as it means I *can* just walk up today and sign up for Monday etc, but it also probably contributes to the 2-7 option being very unpopular - if it was busier there might be more people for 8-1 but still quite a few for 2-7. And there's maybe a kind of network effect here; just as I am being pushed towards 8-1, so is everyone else, which creates a spiral.

2304 I think I'm going to move to bed. I will sleep on it but I am coming down towards school 2. Both schools have a modest number of generally very positive reviews when I do a Google search (this mainly seems to turn up Google's own reviews and Facebook reviews) but school 2 has more reviews and a higher score - since it's such a 'narrow' decision these kind of things help tip the balance. I think most of the reviews for both are recentish - school 5 for example has only about three reviews, all very very positive admittedly, from about three years ago IIRC. (If I strongly preferred school X having visited I would not worry too much any reviews, unless there were some very negative ones which sounded non-ranty. But here it's acting as a pseudo-tie-breaker.)

Just turned TV on by accident while checking the brochure for school 2, which was mildly creepy until I realised where the music was coming from.

2320 Bed. Did I say already pedometer app clocked up 19173 steps today? Sometimes it goes wrong and shows implausible 6+ digit counts, but I can believe this.

Oh, and maybe it's just a heart problem developing, but I did notice walking up some steeply inclined streets here this morning left me quite breathless, which I will assume is due to the altitude. (It's not high enough to get proper altitude sickness, and indeed I felt fine 99% of the day, but walking uphill did feel a lot harder than usual.)