Como se dice “lymph”? (9/6/10)
Linfa. For all who don’t know I have a condition called “Lymph edema”. Loosely translated from medical terms… my feel swell and aways look swollen. I think possibly I saw someone with it two days ago but seeing as I don’t speak Spanish… I wasn’t going to ask. Anyway. Everyone keeps staring obviously and people keep asking about it. Took me a while to realize that I should look up the word for lymph and disease (enfermedad). Whatever. When I am better at forming my thoughts in Spanish I’ll be able to explain.
Every day I’m here I am able to understand more of what people say, and form sentences a more quickly and with less grammatical errors. I had a long conversation last night with my brother Alberto about my school in Spain and how it’s very different than those in the United States when we were walking the dogs. When we got home we had a longer conversation about gay rights in Spain, abortion, and music. I kept telling him that we need to have the conversation again when I speak Spanish and he kept laughing haha. That’s my usual answer now. I understand a lot of what is being said but I am not able to answer as of yet. Today has been really successful so far! I had a short conversation with my neighbor when my family was eating lunch and she said “Wow what good Spanish she speaks” and we all laughed. My Spanish is somewhat awful… but I am getting better.
I feel like I’ve been here for weeks. The food is incredible, the people are all so nice, the house is so cool, (it’s four stories, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Feel free to stalk my facebook. I’m going to take more pictures than just my room), the only issue is me not being able to talk haha. The accent is so hard. I pretty much need to forget everything I learned in Spanish. The lisp is something madddd hard. Only lisping c’s and z’s is so strange and I keep trying to lisp s’s too and then everyone laughs because I can’t say olive oil! (Aceite, pronounced “athete” but I say “athiayte”. My life.)
Something else. Being blonde and pale doesn’t really matter here lol. Everyone thinks I’m Spanish! No idea why. Today we spent two hours waiting to register me in school and women kept coming up and talking to Paz and me and would ask me questions and usually I had NO idea what they said. They are always surprised when I say “Permiso, yo no hablo espanol” then they laugh and say “Oh! Permiso!”.
Quick overview of what I’ve been up to.
Touring cities (Aranjuez y Madrid yesterday)
EATING ( I dunno if it’s just because the food is different but I can’t eat nearrly as much as everyone else, and usually I’m the one finishing the food!)
Finding hookers… (Alberto showed me some haha we passed them on the street in Madrid.)
Helping cook (My mom made little meat balls today. I don’t remember the Spanish word.)
Walking the dogs (I think that every night this is going to be my and Alberto’s job)
Driving (Not me.. but being driven places. People in Madrid don’t care about lines in the road. Sorta feel like I’m going to die every time I’m in a car.)
Talking to the dogs (I can practice my Spanish without feeling stupid haha everyone in the family talks to the dogs. Kiara and Luna are there names.)
And a lot more, but I’m gonna go try to talk to my dad haha. He doesn’t speak any English so when I get stuck I try out my Spanish definition skills.
Besos!
