by annieAbout an hour bus ride southeast of Madrid lies a quaint pueblo, Chinchon. We woke up "early" on Tuesday morning to catch the 10:30 bus. The landscape outside of Madrid reminded me of northern California, except green instead of brown. Upon our arrival, we quickly spotted a hostel and obtained a map of the village.We made our way through the narrow streets, gaping at the stunning stucco buildings, tiled rooftops and unique doorways. We toured the main church, the plaza mayor, and the center of town.
After sufficient exploring, we stopped in a courtyard to make tuna sandwiches on fresh baked bread from a local bakery. Brian cut his finger on the tuna can and so began my first solo Spanish-speaking journey, into a nearby insurance business. Brian taught me the word for napkin- servieta- and toilet paper- papel higienico- but by the time I came face to face with the stern man behind the desk, I could only remember servieta. A reenactment:
me: tienes una servieta?
him: que? que quieres...and more Spanish I didn't understand.
me: hablas ingles?
him: no.
me: uh, mi novio tienes un...(insert ridiculous theatrics and sound effects of a person stabbing his finger with a knife)
him: ah! (and more Spanish). He walked over to the bathroom and pulled on the toilet paper, looking at me for validation that this was indeed what I wanted.
me: Si! Si! Muchas gracias!!!!
Success! I walked back, beaming, and helped Brian clean up his cut. With his finger fine, we enjoyed our lunch and had a good laugh about me butchering the tense of the verb tener under pressure, and also resorting to good old-fashioned, cross-lingual charades to get what I wanted.
I have to start somewhere, right?
More pics of Chinchon:
That brings back so many memories! The translation thing never gets old. It's always a great experience. I'm reminded of how I spent several minutes in a bank trying to find the word for pencil - argh! But now I never forget it's lapiz. And how I love the fresh bread! Christine has been making fresh bread in a machine, so nice.
ReplyDeleteOn my 1st trip to Russia, my skills weren't so good speaking as they were writing. After trying to get my point across for about 5 minutes at the market and failing, I said, "I need to write." I was better at writing Russian. Except I stressed the wrong part of the word "write," so I ended up saying (gesturing that I needed to write what I wanted) "I need to pee." I didn't think that guy would ever stop laughing at me.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos.
Hey Brian, how about a picture of you and Annie on the blog. We miss you. Mark
ReplyDelete