One evening in Chile, I was sipping wine while trying to read news stories on the internet in Spanish. As a former journalist, I still feel the need to stay abreast of the news, but I frequently feel clueless about what’s going on in Santiago. Unfortunately, it’s hard to be informed when you have so few resources in English and pathetic Spanish skills. (Even after three years in a Spanish-speaking country!)

During a moment of tipsy frustration, I decided I needed a kick in the pants. I googled immersion Spanish programs around the world and read heaps of reviews. Another glass of wine, and – click – just like that, I was booked for two weeks at the Livit Immersion Center in Puebla, Mexico.

That felt good, so I kind of forgot about it for a few months. When our winter break rolled around last month, I suddenly realized that I was going to Mexico. To study Spanish for two weeks. And live with a Mexican family. By myself.

Holy crap! What had I done?

Departing Florida, I said farewell to Tony and the rest of my family. I took a deep breath and prepared to jump feet first into Spanish.

My casa away from casa is located in east-central Mexico, about two hours by car from Mexico City. My hosts, Javier and Anita, are lovely and patient with my rambling attempts to communicate. They have hosted students for the school for 10 years, so they have this down to a science. Another student, Jacinda, stays upstairs. We’re close to the same age, which is to say, we’re quite a bit older than the other students at the school. It’s nice to have someone else at the table during meals to take some of the pressure off! Speaking of the table, Anita prepares wonderful authentic meals for us for breakfast and dinner (and serves them at gringo hours … whew!).

Here’s our school schedule: Classes every day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, we tour Puebla with a one-to-one language guide in the afternoon. We have excursions on Thursdays and free time on Fridays.

Lunch takes place in the school’s back yard three days a week. The food has been fabulous, prepared by Flora, whose daughter Maru runs the school with her husband, Scott. We all try to speak Spanish as much as possible. Tuesdays, we all go to a restaurant together. Thursdays, we pile into a bus with our sack lunches for an excursion to a nearby attraction.

I am in a class with two guys who are seminary students from Texas, Ryan and Luke. They have been at the language school for six weeks, so their vocabulary is pretty strong. The school focuses on building conversational skills, and our lessons follow a pattern: Our teacher, Anna, passes out words to each of us, and we have try to make the others guess the words. Then we turn in our diario for her to check. (It takes me hours each night to write a one-page diary entry about my day. Sigh…) Next, she uses a list of random questions to promote conversation, focused on a specific grammatical structure. We read a text, do a few worksheets, learn something new (verb tense/pronouns/etc.), and then do a few more worksheets and have another conversation.

So far, it’s been hard. At times, it’s extremely frustrating. However, I feel confident that this is what I need to kickstart my Spanish. Ay carumba!