How to order a pillow

It has been a busy couple of day, but I will get to that in a minute. First I thought I would share with you the funny language mistakes I have made so far:

1.      A few nights ago I went to a bar and it had been kind of a long day. I decided I would order a beer that I remember I liked called “Alhambra.” I went to order and asked the guy if I could get an “almohada” thinking I had asked for an “Alhambra.” He looked at me like I was a little crazy and I did the same to him because I swore I ordered an Alhambra beer…so again I asked for an “almohada.” At this point it was obvious that I wasn’t getting through so I just asked for a wine like my friends had ordered. After about 10 minutes of trying to figure out why he couldn’t understand what I had said I realized what I had ordered…a pillow. Lesson learned- don’t order pillows at a bar. Lol

2.      I was talking with some friends about going to Malaga late last week. Since it was my first time going they were giving me advice like where to go, what to do, what to eat, etc. One thing they recommended was to eat the fried fish there. Since Malaga is right along the ocean they’ve become famous for their seafood, of course. I wanted to then tell them that I like fish so I’d probably enjoy that. I was trying to sound more like I was from Andalucía, I was attempting the accent (the Andalusian accent basically means that you kind of get rid of the “s” and “d” in a word) so I said that I like “pecados.” What I meant to say was like I like “pescados” which is fish in Spanish (the dead ones because the live ones have a different name) but, again, trying to have the “andaluz” accent I didn’t pronounce the “s” and said pecado. One tiny problem with what I said…”pecado” means sin. Lesson learned- only omit the “s” at the END of a word…otherwise you may end up “liking sins” 

As of yet those are really the only two I have but I’m sure I will have lots more after 9 months…how lucky for all of you.

The last few days have kind of been a blur…and no it’s not because I’ve been drinking too much wine! More like I’ve been really exhausted. I’m not sure if it’s having to change back and forth from English to Spanish or not knowing where I’m living next week or the fact my phone company charges more than it costs to buy groceries for a month (I’m kind of joking…but only a little). All this is sure to change but as of right now I can seriously understand why the Spanish have siesta- and I’m SOOOO thankful for it.

I’m sure you are all interested in how work is going…since that’s why I’m here, right?? Well, at least that’s why I’m living in Lucena. So on Monday I worked for just a couple hours (one hour of conversation and one more just looking over their class materials) and that was a nice, easy intro day. Tuesday was a bit more…well, BUSY since I had to return to Cordoba. Tuesday was the orientation for all the “students” working in the province of Cordoba. When I got to Cordoba I headed towards the street where the orientation was to be held…of course, in Spain there are certain addresses that don’t have numbers lol. That is to say it just tells you the street and you get to figure it out from there. Now, since this was a big meeting, relatively about 80 or 90 people in the program were there, one would think, “this shouldn’t be that hard to find” but of course that’s never the case when you think it. I ended up running into a few other students in the same predicament as myself so we became a small mob in search of this place. In total, we probably asked about 10 people (either living or working on that street) if they knew where it was…and of course about half said one way and half said the other. I definitely enjoy how people give directions in Spain…they typically get you within a 5 block radius and then it’s your job to figure the rest out lol. Needless to say, we found the place and they hadn’t started by the time we arrived (I’m guessing we were about 10-20 min late) because, well, it’s Spain. The whole thing was just a few hours long and in that time we had a 15 min break and then lunch…with wine and beer…in a school (again- love Spain).

Since I’m not really what you would call a “shy” person (yes I know you’re laughing), I met a few girls from the states, one from Scotland (her accent is AWESOME), 2 from Belgium (well at least I think they were both from there- they both spoke French), 3 other people living in Lucena but teaching at different schools, one girl from Canada and OF COURSE someone I knew. She’s actually from Seattle and doing the same program here in Spain, which just so happens to be in the same province I’m in, and it just so happens that we used to have cross country meets together (she went to a different high school but very close by). I already knew it was a small world and this kind of stuff just keeps reaffirming that.

I basically spent the rest of the day…literally the WHOLE rest of the day talking with people that I met…until about 10pm. It was a great day though and met some great people. I really enjoyed the fact that I met two girls from Belgium who knew no English so we spoke in Spanish- that alone made my day. 

Today has been a bit calmer since I spent 3 hours at the school for work and was able to come home and take a nap a little while after that. I’m still really focused on trying to find a place, figuring out what a TIE is (some sort of extra ID that I need to go get…in Cordoba of course), starting up a bank account and all those fun little things that you don’t think about unless you up and move to a different country. Now, I have to figure out how to clean a floor…the Spanish way haha (they have mops…don’t worry- it’s not THAT different).