No Hablo Bueno

So, Nic is bilingual. As in, he is a fluent French speaker. He went to high school and college in France. He has introduced me to many people in France who say “you don’t speak ANY French?”, like the unfortunate affliction it is; akin to watching reality television, or not liking seafood . “Not unless you’d like to come to bed with me tonight”, is the joke I’d say if there were anyone to laugh at my jokes.

I defended my lack of speaking any French by saying to people, who, by the way, mostly speak pretty good English* “I took SPANISH in school, if you can believe all the rotten luck! If only I’d met a handsome half-SPANISH American, but I guess there aren’t as many of them in database development.”

*Point you, schools in Europe. America is still too upset over losing to Asia at math to worry about teaching kids languages, I think.

But then Nic and I came to Spain, upon which time he said “ok, we’re in Spain. Now you be in charge of talking.” AS THOUGH THE THINGS I HAD SAID ABOUT TAKING SPANISH IN SCHOOL INDICATED THAT I SPEAK SPANISH.

this is a picture of nic every time i don’t speak spanish.*
*actually i made him stand in a grotto at parc guell so i could take pictures of him and THEN i made him take his sunglasses off and his eyes burned out of his head because it was so bright. but isn’t the first version funnier?

As it turns out, I don’t speak Spanish. At all. Today I remembered how to say “can I pay the bill, please” and it felt like discovering fucking penicillin. Also, after thinking about it with as much concentration as I’ve ever used in my life, I remembered that the word for ice is hielo. I felt like I’d birthed a child.

Unfortunately, speaking a language does not just consist of vocabulary. Sí, EL HELADO. Sí! LA ABUELA! Not good enough. Rarely, if ever, when traveling in a country, do you get to reference both ice cream and someone’s grandmother in one sentence.

Not never, but rarely.

seeing as this post isn’t really about anything, here is a picture of the ceiling at parc guell for some actual content. the place needs to be this epic and huge to hold up the weight of 12810 fat tourists. sorry, 12812.