Second Block Edition: Tales from Miami Ad School Account Planning Bootcamp. Location: Minneapolis, MN.

9.20.2009

Sueños de castellano.

I've been having my first dreams in Spanish. It's quite the train wreck. Even in my dreams I get frustrated with verb use, conjugations, vocabulary and listening. Why even bother, brain? You're off duty, why are you working so hard to impress the other dreams with your half-ass bilingual skills? It just doesn't make sense. So obviously when I wake up the first thing I'm thinking about is Spanish....wait. Maybe you are a genius after all brain. We'll, see. But nevertheless, my Spanish is improving.
On other fronts, I've made a huge effort in the iPod grievance process. Mostly I've accepted that I'll be stuck in the denial phase forever. Just pretending that I never even had one. Which is an awful thing to do when something you love goes missing. But this is the healthier option to glaring at every person on the street with white headphones in the chance that they are el ladrone (the thief) of my precious.
My weekend has been quite the relaxing success. Which is just what I needed after my two past weekends of debauchery. I won't add on those subjects as to embarrass myself and cause unnecessary attention directed towards my social life. Being as important as that is, let's not damage it.
On Friday, I went to my dance class, where I was actually able to not look at the instructor for every single position change. It was quite the accomplishment. I've mastered the vocabulary of directions and body parts! (I rarely use the exclamation point, thanks to a certain UNT Advertising professor, but in this case, it's definitely plausible.) So, seeing as though my week was full of acceptance, grievance, change and bilingual dreaming, I took my exhausted self home, opened a bottle of wine and took a deep breath.
Yesterday, a friend of mine and I went to see Citizen Kane (1941) at one of the art museums here. She informed me of the weekend picture shows for 7 pesos. I had never seen the film, and I really enjoyed it. It was certainly a film made to enjoy best in a theater. If I had rented it, I'm not sure I would have made it through. But the whole experience of the crackling black and white screen and rolling projector. Spanish subtitles. It was excellent. Now, I get all the Rosebud references I've heard.
Today, I will go teach at Nieves' house to her two daughters. Nieves is a conversation student that I had, and she liked me so much she asked me to start teaching her daughters, age 10 and 16. Both of them go to schools that incorporate English into the curriculum. The older one goes to a bilingual school where multiple subjects are taught in English. So as you can see, I don't really 'work' that hard. I usually go and talk with her and the girls for a few hours then she makes some delicious type of food and postre (dessert). Usually with dulce de leche and chocolate. Oh, the wonders of dulce de leche. How have I gone my whole life without a constant supply of you? A few weeks ago she made homemade alfahores. Now, allow me to explain the wonders of the alfahor: they are the national 'cookie' of this country. It's two (sometimes three) soft cookies with dulce de leche in the middle, and either sprinkled with powdered sugar, another layer of chocolate, or both. I'm not food critic, I'm just a simple writer so I can't possibly properly explain these things to give them proper justice. (But if you start commenting on my blog more, then maybe I'll bring you one back) And I've still managed to loose weight. What?! I know.

Anyways, I haven't even begun to explain the amazing desserts here in this country. Maybe because for the first few months I was here I was terrified to try any because I knew how much I would want to eat them all the time. So now, that I walk an enormous amount each day, I've started to indulge myself a little. There's an art to finding new postre in this country. The art is more like 'modern abstract art' where anything and everything goes, in order to truly appreciate what there is. But I've found a few that really swing in my direction.
Pepas: A scrumptious soft cookie with a jam-like substance in the middle. Like I said I'm not very good at the food descriptions.
Alfahor: Um, the best damn thing that was ever created in this country. Except maybe a few of the good looking men.
Really those are the top two right now, and the others I can't remember their names, so obviously not worth a food write-up courtesy of Elise Wyatt. Next week, we'll discuss juice boxes and empañadas--which I made this week, epañadas not juice boxes.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:14 AM

    lol my friend Ashley came back from BA also obsessed with Alfahores!! Diviertete!! chao-jezica-

    ReplyDelete