nesicito mas tiempo

even after three years of español con señora arkins in escuela secondaria, y un otra mas año en el universidad, i still have no idea how to speak much spanish. so, what better way to learn then to spend three weeks in madrid, spain, right? well, after having been here for 48 hours, i´ve realized that it isn´t nearly enough to even begin to learn spanish. i need more time. like years!

my spanish madre, Pilar, no habla engles NADA. yes, that is correct. Pilar, a very lovely 55-year-old woman who is nice enough to host foreign students, speaks no English. which is totally cool, since i shouldn´t expect people to speak english, but it didn´t make our conversations easy! i showed up Sunday and spent the afternoon watching a random spanish-dubbed Lifetime movie about Linlin, the single Chinese mom, and her American lover. corporate espionage and leukemia aren´t things they teach on my Rosetta Stone, but i kept up.

after our pelicula, pilar and i went for a walk around the barrio. madrid, at least what i´ve seen, is a really great city! we had a cup of hot chocolate (think a melted hershey bar, not that watered down shit they serve at starbucks) with parras (think churros, but more fat). then, in true Spanish madre style, we went to la iglesia catolico. i hadn´t been in country for 12 hours and already someone´s mom was dragging me to church. i think the language barrier helps. maybe if mine and dan´s mom didn´t speak english, they could trick us in to church more often?

anyhoo, that was day 1 in country. ayer (yesterday) i had a full day of classes (more on that later), and came home to find Pilar´s sister and brother-in-law (my spanish aunt and uncle, ¿i guess?) at the house for an after-dinner visit. being the silly american girl whose name translates into ¨the tree called holly¨-- i was quite a hit. they ask ¨¿tu nombre es un arbol? curiosa.¨the brother in law, my spanish tio (uncle) loves airplanes, so we could chat about that. he also loves ¨say, ennay, ennay¨and ¨say, essay, EEee - Nueva York.¨(That´s CNN and CSI -New York, that took me a few minutes to figure out.)

In all, Pilar and her family have been fantastic hosts. I love that they don´t speak english -- it keeps me guessing and helps me practice my confused look.