Day 5- Zumo

I set my alarm on my new phone to wake me up about an hour before class so I had time to get ready and eat breakfast. Because of my inability to use military time, my alarm didn’t go off and my host mom woke me up about 15 minutes before I had to leave. Oops!  On the positive side, I got an extra hour of sleep. For breakfast this morning I had a piece of home made Spanish banana bread and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. In all the years of studying Spanish we’ve learned the word “jugo” for juice. If you say that here in Spain, the people look at you funny. The word here is “zumo.” Since I was short on time I chugged my “zumo de naranja” and took a piece of bread for the road.


After class was over we met our conversation partners for the first time. Each one of us is paired up with a native Spanish speaker who wants to improve their English skills and they will help us with our Spanish. It’s surprising at the number of people who know how to speak English here! My friend Alex and I share a conversation partner named Oscar, not to be confused with one of my host brothers. His English is better than my Spanish but I’m grateful to have a partner. He invited Alex and I to una fiesta tomorrow where a lot of his friends will be. The party goes from 2 in the afternoon until 2 in the morning. Count me in! It’s part of the Semana Santa celebration because all the Espanola students don’t have school for the rest of the week.

This evening Alex, Natalie, and I did a little window shopping at the stores in Spain. We learned about some of the cultural norms in our classes on Monday and got to witness them first hand. We were warned that shop owners don’t say hello or goodbye to their customers or acknowledge them unless the customer approaches them first. The man who told us this was able to compare his culture to ours from firsthand experience. He visited a jewelry store in the United States and felt obligated to buy something. The clerk in the store was overly nice to him saying hello, asking if he needed help, checking up on him frequently, and said goodbye. He said he felt bad and felt pressured so he bought some jewelry for his wife. He’s used to having everyone mind their own business. In fact, people hardly smile or say hello to strangers on the street. It’s not out of rudeness, but almost out of honesty and respect. The Spanish people aren’t fake or pretending to be nice. It’s refreshing to walk into a store and not feel bombarded with questions or feel like you have to be a peppy customer all the time not wanting to hurt the clerks’ feelings. For me, it has been a bit hard to adjust to the whole no smiling thing. Without thinking about it, I add a little extra sweetness by smiling as an invitation for humor to make up for my lack of Spanish. It makes me stick out even more.

Our friend Dan met us at the grocery store where we picked up a few snacks to have before working on our homework. Today we learned new food vocabulary in class, so Dan and I spent about 10 minutes practicing our fruit vocabulary in the juice section while the other two found snacks. The names of fruits were printed on the juice labeles which was good practice for pronunciation. I never knew the grocery store could be so educational. After that, the 4 of us worked on our homework in an outside café and I ordered my first café con leche.

Alex and I with our cafe con leche

Natalie and I infront of the water fountain by el Correos

When I got home my host mom had prepared this puree vegetable soup dish which I didn’t like very much but I also had grilled fish and fried potato slices which I liked much more. Dessert is always my favorite and today we had strawberries and cream. My host brother, Oscar, came down to join me and we watched the Barcelona soccer game on TV. I asked lots of questions and engaged in the game by commenting on the players who I thought were good looking. I’m still not sure if he likes having me around or if I’m a bother to him for asking stupid questions. I am a blonde American girl after all. At one point I asked him what one of the words meant that they kept on saying over and over again. I said it several different times in a row because I couldn’t pronounce it very well. He chuckled for a while before being able to answer. It was one way to say "f*uck you" in Spanish. No wonder he was laughing! I’ve learned not to get too embarrassed and use these moments as opportunities to practice the correct pronunciation of one of my favorite phrases, “lo siento.”