25 Hour Learning Challenge, Part 3

My target activity that I wanted to work on was becoming more proficient with my conversational Spanish. The timing could not have been better for this week because I just so happen to be in Mexico on vacation. I have been here for 24 hours and so far I have been able to use my conversational Spanish with navigating though customs, taking a taxi, ordering food, speaking with hotel and restaurant employees, and walking around the town. In addition, I took an hour long, private Spanish class this morning where I was able to review vocabulary words with a native speaker. One of my goals was becoming more proficient with speaking in the past tense, as I would be able to tell stories. So far I have not had the chance to use the past tense in my travels. What I have found satisfying with the learning process so far is that I have retained a good amount of the vocabulary that I learned in the past; however, I have been frustrated by the fact that there are many bilingual people to help me when I need it, and I don't want to rely on them in order to communicate. Whereas the native speakers want to be helpful, it would actually be more helpful for me if they supported me by only speaking to me in Spanish. So far, every person that I have met and conversed with has been part of the community that has supported me as mentors.