Catching Up from Madrid

Alright so I'm about to go to bed. I'm on Skype (if you don't have it, I'd definitely consider getting it...it's free!) talking with Elise and she's selling me pretty well on why I ought to go ahead and go to sleep. It's tempting since classes start in the morning, but while I'm pleading my case with her, I thought I'd bring you up to date on a few more details about my homestay, a critical vocabulary lesson, and an embarassing yet funny story.

I mentioned some of this, but at the risk of redundancy, I'm living with a 70ish year-old widow in her apartment in Madrid. Her apartment is right at the center of town on the 5th story of a 6 story building. It's a very nice apartment and the decorations (portraits, very classy) remind me a lot of my grandmother's house in Alabama. Our senora (Carmen Moreno) fixes us breakfast and dinner each day and sits with us at dinner. The Spanish eating schedule is much different than that of the US (breakfast at 8ish, long big lunch at 2, dinner around 9:30), but I'm getting used to it, believe it or not! On my first day, I buzzed her apartment when I showed up and after she called down, I said, "Senora?? Es Graham (It's Graham)." She brought me up, shook my hand, and the semester began. She's very good to Robert and I and we're growing closer each day. She doesn't speak any English (she says she really regrets never learning it), but that helps our Spanish...forces us to speak correctly and use the vocabularies we have to compensate for the ones we don't. At meals, we talk about our families, Spanish politics (socialist government with a king...a lot to talk about!), the places we want to travel, her trips to the U.S., and whatever has happened that day or happens to be on her tv during the meal! She's great to us and knows the way to my heart...she always fixes more than enough food!

This next part is completely unrelated and I'm realizing that I have no transition to it. Is a bad transition better than none at all? Oh well, I guess I'll learn after I post this. In Spain, saying "okay" does not translate. This is not good for me. In Spain, everyone says "Vale" (prounced BAH-lay)...roughly translated, it means "go ahead" or "okay". The bad part is, I'm having trouble translation my go-to words, especially "awesome". This results in my saying "excelente" way more than any one human being should. Elise isn't letting me forget that...neither is my senora...

Last, but not least, a story. Our last morning in San Sebastian, Elise and I went to get breakfast in town. I need to post a picture of the thing I got (like a crepe, but full of bacon, sausage, and cheese...man fuel). We sat down at a cafe so we could get drinks. She ordered a cappucino and I wanted orange juice, but my memory failed me on how to say "juice" in Spanish. The one thing I could think of was "juicio"...which made a lot of sense. The waitress came by, I gave her my order, and she just stared at me. I tried again...to no avail. One more time, a little more frustrated (because I just knew I was using the right word) and a little louder, still a failure. Confused at why she didn't understand, I said "juice" and she got it! After talking with Elise for a few minutes about where I went wrong, it suddenly hit both of us. "Juicio" means "justice". Try that at a restaurant today. "Hi, sir, what can I get for you?"

"Ummm how about a little justice?"