“Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness.” – Ray Bradbury

I think that one of the things that is most difficult for me in Spain is having to accept that I cannot be as smart in the Spanish language as I am in English. I pride myself on my English vocabulary and, despite not being sure of the difference between a present continuous or a simple present noun, my writing and speech is almost always grammatically correct. Perfect, if you will. (haha.... sadly, first - and second, third, fourth... - impressions of me don’t in anyway imply that I’m intelligent. Oh well.)

So adjusting to the fact that my Spanish is, at best, elementary is pretty tough. Yeah, I can convey my basic wants and needs, maybe even tell a story... ocasionally, even in the past tense. But anything more is usually lost in translation. One example is that I’m pretty sarcastic... but trying to be sarcastic in Spanish is nearly impossible for me. Last night, I said “era una broma” (it was a joke) after I received a blank stare from my new policia friend. He said, in Spanish, “I don’t understand your jokes.” Ouch. 

In any language, I think one of the worst things is NOT KNOWING something, anything. One example is that one of the profesoras that I teach English to wanted me to explain the economy in America right now. Umm... I didn’t have internet for 6 weeks, I’ve never taken economics in college and I’m pretty sure that in high school I did about as poorly as I’ve ever done in a class in Economics (not including AP Calculus, por supuesto). So, I will be giving myself a quick crash course on economics and trying to give Lola a free lesson next Thursday. Yikes. 

In general, it seems as though all the useless knowledge that I’ve accumulated in the past 22 years (okay, not sure exactly how much I learned years 0-3 or so) have set me up for teaching English. I can explain the American government to them, talk to them about my pets, explain various sports, talk about all the random places I’ve been to in America (thanks, parents, for taking us to that dude ranch. That’s easily understood by Spaniards), discuss American movies and music. Pretty much all my time wasted in America has geared me up to teach the culture of my country.

I had to travel to Spain to find out that I’m an interesting person. 

Thanks American friends... hijos de putas, jajaja.