Day 6. Location: Leónsian Rainforest. A.k.a. calle lancia.
It’s day 6, and I’ve developed quite a relationship with the herd. They seem to like me, and know I enjoy their company. We’ve settled into something of a routine. Every morning I wake up to shower and clothe myself. I enter the kitchen afterwards where I always find a bowl full of milk, frosted flakes, and a tin box full of cookies and breaded treats. I think the mother is trying to fatten me up but I won’t let my fears get the best of me. She is somewhat of a ninja: sometimes my clothes mysteriously disappear from where I left them She might be saving them up to present them clean at some point or she might have already sold them. In the mornings I have watched her from afar. It’s like clockwork. She can clean the entire house (and does every day) in about an hour. Incredible. Although I don’t speak there language very well, they seem to have accepted me as one of their own. It reminds me of Tarzan.
Last night the grandfather and I sat watching TV for a while and I discovered game shows are the best thing to watch to learn a language because the subjects are very simple and repeated. He also explained to me the spanish lottery. If I knew spanish, and him, a little better I’d probably tell him the chances of him winning are so slim that it’s really not worth it. He’d get more enjoyment on spending that money on nice clothes, or another pair of awesome slippers
-PICTURE OF MANOLO’S SWEET ZAPATILLOS-
The son and I have a nice relationship even after I schooled him at darts in the first hour I knew him. A quick note there: I really tried to lose to him more than once. It’s hard to fake a score that low though. We have had few conversations fewer than I’d like to see. I think I might try to play futbol with him in the near future. Time to grab to dictionary.
The best time I’ve had with the family in the last couple days has been with their cousin Alba. At 10 years old, she’s very friendly and has a great knack for explaining things. Yesterday she invited me into the computer room and we played a soccer game where Will Ferrel was the goalie. She required me to translate the english directions into spanish which was very difficult. After that we played “hang mau”. Hang man in spanish was pretty tough for two reasons. One, spanish vocab is not my strong suit. Two, instead of a man they used a kitten suspended above a pool full of sharks, octupi, crocs, and piranhas. Phrases such as “NO! gatito!” were constantly uttered.
I’ve figured out after one week that confidence is a large part of learning a language. There’s no way to learn if I don’t speak it, and these people are really nice. So. It’s game time.
I must now introduce all 10 readers to Santos Rodriguez. Santos is our program coordinator here. He’s awesome. An english teacher at the “Centro de Idiomas” where I take my classes, he speaks english, spanish, and straight baller. He’s really funny and very helpful. He teaches english from ~4-7 on fridays and I jokingly asked him if he wanted a guest speaker. He was more than happy to have me. As we walked to the classroom he told me I should introduce myself and talk in slow, enunciated english for about 2 minutes. After I had finished talking about Vashon and my life in León, he then told me I had to say everything again in spanish. That tricky devil. He said I was here to learn spanish and he was going to help me do it. All said and done, with difficulty, it was a nice 5 minutes. I had a question and answer session with the class and the first question they asked was: “do you know Barrio Humedo?” That’s the bar/club district. Fitting. I told them I was going there tonight and they told me they’d see me there. So I’m kind of a celebrity.
Spanish people definitely have strange habits when it comes to parties. The most crowded I’ve seen the streets has been at 3am.
fun fact of the day: a smoky bar can clear up a runny nose but leaves you with lung cancer.
Update as I am posting this in the morning:
Yesterday we spent the day riding in a bus and stopping at various locations in the mountains of León. Talk about beautiful. We could literally see for miles and miles all around us. The best part was a 5-7km hike to a lookout point. As we neared the point it began to rain a little bit and by the time we got back to the bus it was pouring. Really cool day. Walking in the cool mountain rain in warm clothes with nothing to do but enjoy the surroundings was the coolest thing I've done in a long time. Met some really awesome people too on the trip! Pics on Facebook as always.
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