Lemon knees and other language thoughts

We are getting better at Spanish. It happened without us really realizing it. I bet if we compared our starting selves to our now selves, there would be a huge improvement, but it's hard to see with everything in between.

We've discovered that watching argentine soap operas are a really good way to practice. Not only do they give you examples of argentine accents and inflections, they teach you useful phrases such as "I only have 2 months to live." and "You killed your own son."

We are forgetting english. You should see how many words are crossed out in my journal because they are misspelled. Yesterday, I forgot the word "pavillion". 

We find ourselves goggling at how bad some people's spanish is.

Nonetheless, we know we have a long way to go. We have many successes but we are also humbled most utterly more often than not.

A few weeks ago I asked my boss for some lemon knees. Didn't know lemons had knees? He didn't either. I actually wanted to ask for some lemon slices (rodajas de limon) but instead I said rodillas de limon (lemon knees). I know they're not super close but still.

Learning spanish has made me look at language in a different way. It seems to me that every language was invented because of the need to express feelings. And all the feelings are the same. You can say "What is that?" or you can say "Que es eso?". They're different words but they spring from the same feeling. For some reason, that is just fascinating to me. I feel like there are implications there but I'm not sure what of.

It's amazing that so many languages exist and that we humans have the capacity to put meaning to symbols and sounds and process them so fast that they actually work (well, most of the time).

Lonely Blog

Ok, so we really suck at this blog thing.

I think maybe it's a good thing. I think it's a sign we've settled into real life. People don't blog in real life. We don't feel so much like outsiders anymore, commenting on the strange behavior of the natives. We are the natives, and the behavior isn't so strange anymore.

But it is sad to come to our blog and realize we haven't written a single word in almost a month.

So....here goes.

Gabby got invited to go on a trip to Cordoba with her co-workers. She couldn't believe that they liked her that much! It was an 11 hour bus ride and 3 days with non-stop spanish. Her brain almost exploded but it was such a great opportunity to practice.

Mike, Ellen, Garth and Cindy are here to visit. Sarah and Andrea are going with them to Mendoza, the famous wine province for a few days starting tomorrow.

Sarah and Andrea have been going to salsa classes regularly and Gabby, tango. They all couldn't resist buying special dancing shoes just for the occasion. Sarah and Andrea even had theirs custom made and they should be ready in two more days.

The sunburn to end all sunburns

Maybe I'm exaggerating but it seriously could be.

They say most of the sun damage to your skin happens during your teen years. For this, I was always very careful. Lots of sunscreen, minimal exposure, hats, long sleeves. But for what? For in a single hour I have absorbed 10 years worth of ultra violet sun rays.

It looks as though I have taken slabs of raw salmon and plastered them across my mid-section. But this time, its not raw salmon, ITS MY SKIN. Yes, my skin. 

I will say this. Luckily, I only exposed my stomach to the sun because it was in the most need, so the rest of me is okay. Truly, if I laid on the sand, it disappeared completely, causing various passers-by to faint from the shock of seeing a disconnected chest and hips reclining on the beach. So it really was in the best interest of all to achieve some level of tan.

Hopefully, eventually it will turn into a tan. But for now, I carefully limp to bed and apply generous amounts of aloe.

I caused a middle-aged woman to scream for fear of her life

All I wanted to do was get my towel. We were going to the beach and I forgot it so I had to run back. But I'd only been there once and not by myself so I got a little confused. The door is hard to open with the key so I stuck my hand through the window to unlock it.

Next came a blood curdling scream and a crazy woman running toward me. This was definitely not our apartment, but the apartment next door!

I could only stammer how very, very sorry I was. 

She asked me where I was from.

"Los Estados Unidos," I answered stupidly.

"No, which apartment," she said. Duh.

How Embarrassing.

Pictures

Jeff's vistit!

The Opera house

There were a lot of intermissions

A lot.

We loved our blue house picture in our first apartment so much.

a possible tattoo for sarah

Huge solar-powered metal flower that opens and closes. So cool!

In Recoleta with our landlord, Ezekiel

Home Alone (5 or 6?)

Sarah and Andrea have left me to fend for myself as they enjoy a few leisurely days at the beach. 

Not really, I'm going to go join them tomorrow, but the house feels so empty without them. I am kind of enjoying being alone though, just because it proves I can do it. I can feed myself and walk down the street by myself and take care of the house by myself. It's quite empowering really.

Today I went out for breakfast by myself and later I'll go to the gym by myself and last night I single handedly out-witted a group of burglars with ingenious homemade booby traps by myself. 

You think I'm kidding.

Felices Fiestas!

Entonces, we spent Christmas and New Year's on our rooftop. Ezequiel threw a party and we watched the fireworks that were being set off all around the city. As Sarah said, if you could find it, you could light it on fire, wherever you wanted. And I think she's right. I don't think there are any firework regulations here. There were bottle rockets going off on the street below and shooting up to within feet of us. And these cool floating lantern thingies in the sky. 

They were both potlucks so for christmas we brought spaghetti and cheesecake and for New Year's we brought pita chips with meat and cheese, little morsels filled with blue cheese and wrapped in bacon and pumpkin pie.

Awesome.