Taylor and I have really enjoyed practicing our Spanish on this trip. My food and question asking vocabulary is getting much better! But what I didn´t realize was how many other languages we would learn and hear along the Camino.
In Cacabellos we had dinner and at dinner people were speaking German, Deutch, Korean, Czech, Spanish, and English. How cool is that!? We really take language for granted because while I was able to speak Spanish to the waiter I couldn´t speak any of our friends native languages but the one language we had the most in common was English. Everyone´s English is so impressive.
In O´Cebreiro at Lucy and Marieke´s birthday dinner Happy Birthday was sung in English and German which was fun!
Nadine and I had two funny moments that evening. Once she was pouring wine for me and said "You´re Welcome" because I had said it earlier. I responded saying that I was planning to say Thank You once she gave me the cup back. I then explain that if you say You´re Welcome before someone says Thank You it´s like you are trying to help them with their manners which apparently was not at all what she was intending! After dinner we had planned to get an ice cream (my weakness!) but it was so cold and getting late that I thought we weren´t going to. But as we passed the ice cream store she said "I feel like an ice cream" which I took to mean that she wanted to get one - and since I cannot say no to an ice cream I was like let´s go! Turns out she meant she was feeling cold like an ice cream. The fact that all of our friends have such good English that we get down to little semantic confusions is amazing to me! Most of them don´t speak it much at home so they seem to enjoy practicing and unfortunately English is basically the only way we can communicate. Man I´m glad I grew up learning it!!
More soon on our last few days - we are leaving Sarria in the morning. This is the last town you can start in and still get a Compostela in Santiago so we are expecting it to be crowded from here it - more friends to meet!!
If I need to learn Spanish to go on a trip like that, I'll start taking classes tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great trip.
I was wondering about something: when you guys need to talk with native Spanish speaking people, who takes the lead? Let me guess: Julia! ...mmm...maybe not...mmm...maybe Taylor!...mmm...well, I'm not sure. Mmmm...I think Bob's Spanish is much better. Yes, definitely, he takes the lead!