THE TROUBLE WITH SPANISH
/The trouble with Spanish is that I don't know it.
All those semesters of high school and college French and Italian ne sont pas helping me talk to molte persone in Barcelona. My hand-gestures-per-spoken-sentence ratio is sharply on the rise and the number of thumbs-ups I've given in the last week makes me feel like a dorky early-90s tee-ball coach. As the NYTimes pointed out a few weeks ago, only about a fifth of people in Barcelona speak conversational English, and most of them seem to work near the touristy city center — i.e., not where we live. My lack of language makes every transaction a little more complicated (and frankly, embarrassing) and is a definite motivator to figure this out. I start one-on-one tutoring twice a week in September (a perk of the job), but until then, charades it is.
Besides the language barrier, the first week here has been excellent. Aaron's parents arrived mere hours after the movers had finished up — a preplanned trip that was meant to happen weeks after we'd arrived and settled in...oops. Luckily for us/unluckily for them, their visit has meant we've had double the number of adult hands to unpack and set up (thanks, Mark and Cyn!). While I worked, the three adults made dozens of trips to shop for groceries and home improvement-y things and new electric appliances (the different voltage meant we needed to make glamorous purchases like a new toaster/hair dryer/vacuum/iron/coffeemaker/etc.), and the apartment is really feeling like home.
The kids, meanwhile, have spent a maximal amount of time wearing a minimal amount of clothing, and still have yet to tire of the hoses on the terraces. We'll take advantage of their watering proclivities by buying some plants and planters at the garden store this week.
I travel by train to Madrid tomorrow for my first "work trip" — not a bad destination, other than the 103 degree high they're expecting. I'm not sure starting a new job 36 hours after moving into your new home in a whole new country is what I would've picked for myself (oh wait; it's not what I picked for myself), but it's made better by the fact that the whole new country takes a four-week vacation three weeks later. August, I love you.
