The best lesson in Spanish I have had...

A great street to stroll down in the Gothic Quarter

Plaza de Jaume

Some serious detail.

*No pictures from this dinner but just a few more from yesterday’s trip to the Barri Gotic.

I hope that when I come back to the US that I don’t take talking for granted ever again. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to chat. In fact, when I was growing up if there was one issue any teachers had with me it was that I liked to talk during class (at least my parents have told me this). Well I have never listened so much as I did during dinner this evening with Sonja (yes, that’s the same “Sonia” I have been writing about but just realized I had been spelling her name wrong) and two Spaniards named Javiar and Joseph (that’s right; do not pronounce the j’s which of course became an issue when it came time to pronounce my name upon learning it).

Since I have been here for the past five days I have had to clearly think about my sentences before saying them; there is no casual conversation on the fly. Everything is very concentrated; sometimes I find myself planning a sentence or question in my head while walking to a store or just down the street.

This evening was the best Spanish lesson I have had since I arrived on Wednesday. Following conversation was at times difficult and sometimes I would feel completely lost and then I would hear just one verb and adjective that I knew (combined with a great use of hand motions) and I would be back on track. I must say, my brain hurt by the end of the meal but it was SUCH good practice. I did my best to keep up with conversation, though I am sure my grammar was atrocious (ironic as it something I pride myself on in the English language), and my dinner companions were sympathetic and understood what I was saying the majority of the time; though sometimes I had to lean on the crutch that is my English/Spanish speaking German roommate, Sonja, to translate for me.

This dinner was a reminder that one of the reasons I came on this trip was to learn the language (not that I had forgotten) and now I am really looking forward to my daily Spanish class which begins next week!