Today´s intercambio partner. She was lovely. We had a typical 2-hour lunch at a Caribbean/Spanish place, where I had my first cocido completo. It´s a soup full of chicken, sausage, pork etc. They serve you the broth with noodles first and then everything that was in the broth as the second plate. I had pears cooked in wine and a café con leche for dessert. As a certain Food Network personality would say, ay, qué rico!
As my Spanish was much stronger than her English, we spoke a lot of Spanish at first, but I think it all evened out. I helped clarify the age thing for her -- in Spanish you say "tengo 27 años" and someone learning English would translate that word for word, sounding really awkward. She helped me with some Spain-specific slang. She also freaked me out a little by appearing eerily similar to me cousin Suzanne at times.
Bueno, tío, tengo que irme. Hasta la próxima vez.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Thoughts re: the language school - Super nearby is a Pans & Company, which I don´t enjoy as a lunch option but which has a side area that sells café y panes dulces in the morning. Lovely.
The school, inHispania, is located at the bottom of the street where all the hookers congregate. They´re more toward the top, so I don´t encounter them while going to or leaving the school, but it´s nice to know they´re there. Aw.
Language classes are always dominated by girls. I´m the only guy in mine (there are six of us total) and I was always one of few guys in my college classes.
My classmates are from Turkey-Turkia, France-Francia, Italy-Italia and Germany-Alemania. It´s fascinating to hear their different Spanish accents. They all sound so much like where they´re from when they speak Spanish - except the Turkish chick. I don´t hear enough Turkish in my daily life to pick out that accent.
I seem to have won them over today. The teacher was trying to tell the Turkish girl how to say ¨choke¨ and mentioned the famous W-choking-on-a-pretzel incident. She looked at us oddly as she tried to pronounce George W. Bush with her pretty thick Spanish accent. I told her she didn´t need to bother, she could just call him dickhead (or asshole, whatever - le dije, "le puedes llamar el hijo de puta, el nombre no es necesario). They sure loved that. I´m just doing my part to repair our battered reputation overseas.
The school, inHispania, is located at the bottom of the street where all the hookers congregate. They´re more toward the top, so I don´t encounter them while going to or leaving the school, but it´s nice to know they´re there. Aw.
Language classes are always dominated by girls. I´m the only guy in mine (there are six of us total) and I was always one of few guys in my college classes.
My classmates are from Turkey-Turkia, France-Francia, Italy-Italia and Germany-Alemania. It´s fascinating to hear their different Spanish accents. They all sound so much like where they´re from when they speak Spanish - except the Turkish chick. I don´t hear enough Turkish in my daily life to pick out that accent.
I seem to have won them over today. The teacher was trying to tell the Turkish girl how to say ¨choke¨ and mentioned the famous W-choking-on-a-pretzel incident. She looked at us oddly as she tried to pronounce George W. Bush with her pretty thick Spanish accent. I told her she didn´t need to bother, she could just call him dickhead (or asshole, whatever - le dije, "le puedes llamar el hijo de puta, el nombre no es necesario). They sure loved that. I´m just doing my part to repair our battered reputation overseas.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Ugh. I don´t do laundromats. So having to use one here is insane and horrifying. It was my choice - I wanted to limit my stuff to carry-on, but ay! At least there´s a computer here.
In other news, today was my first day of lessons at inHispania language school. I forgot how scary it is to be called on to complete a grammar exercise. Madre mía. I´m not sure how much help one week of classes will be but at least it forces me to use my Spanish a little more than I have been (not that I haven´t been hablando español, pero tú sabes).
In other news, today was my first day of lessons at inHispania language school. I forgot how scary it is to be called on to complete a grammar exercise. Madre mía. I´m not sure how much help one week of classes will be but at least it forces me to use my Spanish a little more than I have been (not that I haven´t been hablando español, pero tú sabes).
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The point of my trip is to kick it in Madrid for two full weeks, to really soak in this one city. That said, I thought it would be stupid to totally ignore the nearby attractions, so I wanted to choose one place to visit for a day. There are several options within a two hour train or bus ride: Segovia, Ávila, El Escorial and Toledo. I kept going back and forth but finally settled on Toledo, in large part because I wanted to experience Europe´s high-speed trains and this is the only really day trip-friendly place you can get to on one of those trains.
After a 25-minute trip (55 miles) in a super comfy tourist-class coach, I arrived at the pretty train station, but faced an annoying 30-minute mostly uphill climb to get to the old city walls and up to the main plaza. I could have taken a bus but I chose to walk it. From Plaza Zocódover, I headed to the gorgeous Cathedral, where I surprisingly was able to take a ton of photos of beautiful art by El Greco. From there I wandered around the painful stone streets until I found one of the city´s synagogues, which is now the National Museum of Sephardic Jews. It was super interesting but by the end of the walkthrough my feet were in soooo much pain. Damn stone streets. They´re beautiful but a serious pain.
I hit some tapas bars and bought some of the city´s famous mazapán before walking back down toward the train station - well, not toward it at first. I got seriously lost, but luckily had given myself plenty of time to get there.
Today´s been cool but I had another random runin, this time with about 50 police officers getting ready to deal with a HUGE group of people marching through the city to protest ETA. More on that here.
After a 25-minute trip (55 miles) in a super comfy tourist-class coach, I arrived at the pretty train station, but faced an annoying 30-minute mostly uphill climb to get to the old city walls and up to the main plaza. I could have taken a bus but I chose to walk it. From Plaza Zocódover, I headed to the gorgeous Cathedral, where I surprisingly was able to take a ton of photos of beautiful art by El Greco. From there I wandered around the painful stone streets until I found one of the city´s synagogues, which is now the National Museum of Sephardic Jews. It was super interesting but by the end of the walkthrough my feet were in soooo much pain. Damn stone streets. They´re beautiful but a serious pain.
I hit some tapas bars and bought some of the city´s famous mazapán before walking back down toward the train station - well, not toward it at first. I got seriously lost, but luckily had given myself plenty of time to get there.
Today´s been cool but I had another random runin, this time with about 50 police officers getting ready to deal with a HUGE group of people marching through the city to protest ETA. More on that here.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Up relatively early to grab a café con leche and pastry and some Internet time before getting ready for the high-speed train to Toledo. As I rounded the corner to the nearest plaza, I saw dozens of girls standing outside the entrance of the far nicer and more expensive hotel across the way. After walking around them for a couple of minutes I realized Mexican supergroup RBD is staying here (a girl was wearing a Mexican flag that said "Estados Unidos de RBD" on it). El último adiós to Fernando Fernán Gómez across the plaza at the Teatro and now RBD. Action-packed plaza!
Last night´s intercambio, over cañas at a bar in the Puerta del Sol, was helpful but weird. They´re weird by nature - two strangers meet and ask those strange first-encounter questions while struggling through each other´s languages. Anyway, the freak in me was pleased that my Spanish was much better than her English, but I know I still have lots of work to do to command the language and, more importantly, feel super comfortable talking to native-speakers. We´re planning to meet again next week after I´ve had a few days of my intensive classes, so hopefully I´ll see a bit of improvement. And hopefully we´ll have something to talk about.
Off to Toledo. Lots of pictures of medieval stuff to come.
Last night´s intercambio, over cañas at a bar in the Puerta del Sol, was helpful but weird. They´re weird by nature - two strangers meet and ask those strange first-encounter questions while struggling through each other´s languages. Anyway, the freak in me was pleased that my Spanish was much better than her English, but I know I still have lots of work to do to command the language and, more importantly, feel super comfortable talking to native-speakers. We´re planning to meet again next week after I´ve had a few days of my intensive classes, so hopefully I´ll see a bit of improvement. And hopefully we´ll have something to talk about.
Off to Toledo. Lots of pictures of medieval stuff to come.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Few things went as planned this morning. I headed out of the hostal at a few minutes before 9 and walked toward Kilómetro Cero, where I was supposed to meet my first ever intercambio partner. Halfway there I realized something: When she said to meet at 9, she probably meant 9 at night. I waited in the freezing cold for 20 minutes anyway and sure enough she never show up. 9 tonight it is. (Duh - 9 is pre-dinner here, of course she meant 9 at night).
While chilling in the room I saw on Telemadrid that the famous writer, director and actor Fernando Fernán Gómez (best known internationally for Belle Epoque) had died and the Teatro Real was holding a special memorial for him in just a few minutes. I thought about heading over there but decided against it. Turns out, the Teatro Real is literally around the corner from the hostal and I inadvertently walked right toward the swarm of TV cameras and interviewers.
Since then I´ve been relaxing in the Parque del Buen Retiro dining at the counter of the Corte Inglés (albóndigas, not bad). And now I´m all over Flickr - although it´s taking forever to upload stuff here. Descriptions probably won´t be done until I return, but enjoy the images.
While chilling in the room I saw on Telemadrid that the famous writer, director and actor Fernando Fernán Gómez (best known internationally for Belle Epoque) had died and the Teatro Real was holding a special memorial for him in just a few minutes. I thought about heading over there but decided against it. Turns out, the Teatro Real is literally around the corner from the hostal and I inadvertently walked right toward the swarm of TV cameras and interviewers.
Since then I´ve been relaxing in the Parque del Buen Retiro dining at the counter of the Corte Inglés (albóndigas, not bad). And now I´m all over Flickr - although it´s taking forever to upload stuff here. Descriptions probably won´t be done until I return, but enjoy the images.
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