Our Spanish Hibernation 3:0

It has been raining all day here in Malaga and, although centre of town is only a ten minute walk, it seemed a good opportunity to experience a couple of things on our doorstep.

In my Spanish lesson earlier this week, Toni was playing me historic audios on subjects including the end of military dictatorship in Argentina in the eighties. I had to answer questions on the audios using the correct past tenses. Obviously, I was rubbish at this and, in all honesty, what I learnt was not at all useful in buying a couple of steaks from our local carnicería (butcher) today.

The shop is literally over the road, so I ran over in the rain. It occurred to me as I waited in line, that the last time I bought anything in a butchers was when we lived in Kerry in Ireland some twelve years ago! Anyway, I apologised to the owner in Spanish for speaking very little of his language. He smiled and I ploughed on in my best Spanglish. A few minutes later, I was back in the apartment with two lovely lean steaks for tomorrow’s dinner.

My second challenge of the day was having my hair cut. The peluquería (hairdresser) I chose is two doors up from the butcher. Run by the lovely Lupe, who also had limited English, the formalities of what I wanted went fine. The following twenty minutes of small talk while she cut my hair was somewhat more challenging. There was no opportunity to chat through my new knowledge of Argentina’s history!

Reading a familiar book in Spanish can work as a way to help learn the language, so Paul has been looking for an española edition of the first Harry Potter. There’s a great second-hand book shop here, so I dropped in and asked if they had a copy. “No,” was the firm reply. “No Harry Potter aquí, nada!” Happily he found a lovely brand new edition elsewhere.