Tag Archives: America

How Going to a New Country Can Change Your Tastes

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I used to hate olives.

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I used to hate red wine.

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(I used to be pretty awful at Spanish.) I mean, I took high school Spanish and majored in it. Yet I was still pretty damn bad. How does that work?

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No, but seriously. I was so terrible at Spanish. How does that work?

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Now, however…

I love olives. If you’re in Spain, please go to a bar now. Order some aceitunas pardas. Eat. Enjoy. Thank me later.

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Now, I love red wine. I especially love me some Elías Mora.

Go to Zamora. Go to any wine shop. Any. Find some wine, preferably Elías Mora. You won’t regret it. It was probably one of the wines that convinced me just how good wine can be.

I never have.

I’m actually better at Spanish. (Mario helps a lot.)

Plus, he’s cute.

I can converse with almost anyone, understand almost anyone, and even understand the majority of a soccer broadcast. (¡Hala Madrid!) For me, that’s pretty impressive. Being bilingual ain’t easy.

At the risk of being cliché, how has moving to another country (even if just for a year) influenced you? Do you like that influence?

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Interview with Mario

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Mario has been to the U.S. before, but I still loving seeing things with his eyes. I remember the first time we saw a big yellow school bus, a mail truck, and the Bean. You know, typical stuff.

He’s fun to listen to when he’s talking about the U.S. to his family. Just today, he was explaining things to his father and I want to laugh because, well, it’s kind of adorable. (His dad is probably the nicest man in the world. And funny…his jokes may be corny at times, but I still laugh.)

Thus, I decided to take a leaf out of Lauren’s book and interview my Spaniard.

        • What was your first impression of Indiana? It was February, were there corn fields? I would say there were fields, vast, acres and more acres of corn fields. People driving large trucks. Cold…since it was February. Nice people. People have been really friendly to me.

          • What did you expect, food wise? Was it what you expected? [Back when I first came to the U.S. in the 1990s] I expected poor quality food, like junk food, pizza, hamburgers. It wasn’t what I expected. At all. My host mother was a great cook. We ate vegetables, a varied diet, fairly healthy. As far as with Kaley’s family, it’s the same – healthy, a good variety, and of course lots of desserts made by Kaley and her mother.

        • What were some things you just had to see? I would like to see the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park. I liked seeing New York City, which is a place most Europeans want to see. (He saw this back in the 1990s when he stayed with a host family in upstate New York.)
        • What do you like most about Indiana/the Midwest? People are friendly and honest, plus nature in general is very nice.
        • What would you miss the most about living in Spain? My family and friends.
        • What is one food you would miss if you moved here? I would miss salchichón, but not just any salchichón, the kind made by my parents.
        • Do you think Americans are like how they are portrayed on TV and in the movies? Eh, so contrary to what appears in Pedro Almodóvar’s movies, Spaniards are not like that, but many American movies reflect the way people live here (i.e., people living in houses and driving because everything’s not within walking distance). The Simpsons can serve as a good “USA for Dummies” book. This is where I first saw tailgating, yellow school buses, and yard sales.

        • Will you continue to use the term rucksack for backpack and call the movie theater “the cinema”? Why? I would still be using rucksack, but I will say movie theater. The first one to annoy you. The second one, I like it better.
He would also like to emphasize that he likes football. Both kinds.

Spanish Phrases I’ve Learned

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Yesterday I wrote about the advantages and disadvantages of dating a foreigner. One is, as I’ve repeatedly said, learning a new language from said foreigner. That said, I know I have many American readers who either a) are learning Spanish or b) want to learn Spanish. I love learning new phrases from my boyfriend, ones that make no sense literally, but are used just the same. (Think “cut to the chase” – what am I cutting and what is the chase?)

I often want to learn new phrases in Spanish, but it’s not as though Mario can think of them off the top of his head (another set phrase in English!). So, I wait until they come up in conversation, as they inevitably do, and then pick his brain (+1 more for me), as you will see below. I suppose I could Google them, but the useful Spanish phrase websites are almost always written for beginners and it’s more fun this way as well as easier to remember.

Example of phrases I do not need to learn. Thanks, but no thanks.

  • a secas - Mario, of course, said this to me. Here’s how it went down, Spanglish and all. And yes, this is copy + pasted straight outta Gmail.
Mario: I hope my next mobile is a mora negra
Mario: o mora a secas
me: mora a secas?
Mario: a secas means “just that”
Mario: in this case, there’s no need to say “mora negra”
Mario: because blackberry means mora
  • pan comido - literally, “eaten bread,” but it means easy as pie / cake. Like, “Ese examen es pan comido” = “That exam will be easy as pie.”
Mario: ¿por qué es pan comido?
me: muy fácil de hacer. eso es lo que significa pan comido, ¿no? ¿fácil?
Mario: sí, aquí ya sabes que hay un culto hacia el pan
Mario: por eso, decimos pan comido
  • irse / marcharse con los bártulos a otra parte - take your stuff and go, but more in the sense of “this sucks, I’m gonna take off.” I love the word bártulos, by the way. Example from Cinco Días.
  • ser una piña - literally, “to be a pineapple,” but you use it to mean to be a tight-knit group. “Somos una piña” = “We’re tight.” Example from La Voz de Galicia.
  • a diestra y siniestra  - this one happened early on in our relationship/my Spanish learning. It means “left and right” in the sense of “The Spanish team is winning medals left and right” = “El equipo español está ganando a diestra y siniestra.” Example from El País.
So, fellow Spanish language learners / Spanish people who want to teach me a cool new phrase – what should be the next phrase I learn? I’m all ears.

Reasons (Never) to Date a Foreigner

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  1. Visa
    Visa issues. Being together gets a lot more complicated. Unless, of course, you’re both members of the EU. If so, whoop dee doo for you. (I hate you.) Someone either has to get a work visa (difficult), a student visa (not so difficult, but expensive), or a marriage visa (big time commitment; hope you don’t have problems with that). Last year, I worked as a Conversation & Language Assistant, which allowed me to be there legally, but this year I’m back in the good old US of A, and trying to find some way to get him over here without resorting to packing him in my suitcase with plenty of food and beverages so they’ll just never know.
  2. Stupid questions. Perhaps I’m impatient, but we’re normal people too, and just because my boyfriend is from another country doesn’t make us any more interesting. However, people don’t tend to agree with me and love to ask the same questions over and over, “When is he coming over?” “Why isn’t he here?” “What language do you two speak when you’re together?” “Does he like America?” “Does he speak English?” “Does he like spicy food? He must love burritos, right?” Uuuuuuuugh.

  3. Airplanes[Source]
    Planes and airports. Back in the day (okay, like four years ago), plane travel was exciting because, well, I rarely had to do it. Nowadays, I feel like I’m on a plane or waiting in an airport every other month. I hate airports and planes. I would not hate it so much if I had lots of money and rode in first class, but alas, that is not the case. If you’ve ever ridden coach, you know what I’m talking about: 8 hours on a plane with your elbows brushing your overly talkative neighbor is just not my cup of tea. I’ve taken the same Madrid-Chicago flight so many times I start repeating this phrase in my sleep: “Tea? ¿Té? Coffee? ¿Café?” and can tell you the breakfast menu by heart (croissant sandwich, cup of fruit, Kit Kat bar, orange juice).
Now that I’ve told you the bad things, here are the good ones.
  1. Sexy/cute accents. Totally superficial, but totally true. I love the Spanish accent and Mario, although fluent and with a rather impressive accent, still slips into his (what we call) Espainish accent from time to time and I love it. I find his English to be adorable, especially when he slips up. I hope he doesn’t find it patronizing, but when he uses double negatives it’s cute. (However, native speakers + double negatives = ew.) And when he speaks Spanish, oh my. Sexy as hell…
  2. Culture
    Introducing them to your culture. It’s really fun to show off all the fun things about American culture: barbecues, baseball, fireworks, nature, family, and friends. I love introducing Mario to what it’s really like to live in the States. Some of it is like the movies (yellow school buses), but some of it isn’t (cheerleaders always being stuck up snobs).
  3. Learning a new language. As I’ve written before, learning a new language is difficult, so why not try it with a real live personal dictionary?
  4. People think your life is exciting. Not that my life is boring, but it’s really a very normal(ish) life. But people tend to think it’s very intriguing. Can’t say I mind that.
  5. Two
    Two cultures. You will always have two different cultures, two different languages in which to express yourself. I sometimes struggle to find the right English word, something I never foresaw happening. If you choose to have children, you can raise them bicultural and bilingual, a prospect I find very exciting and potentially jealousy-inducing (what I wouldn’t give to be truly bilingual!).