adios íngles

This week certainly proved to be quite eventful, filled with some hilarious moments, multiple pruebas (quizzes) and papers and of course muchas tazas de café. Claro. (Our new favorite word… it’s the equivalent of “obviously” in English, but just sounds much cooler in Spanish. Pepa uses it at least 1,000,000 times a day. So we’ve followed suit and added it to our ever-increasing vocabulary).

On Wednesday morning our group met in front of the one and only Burguer King for our bodega adventure, on time for the most part. There were a few stragglers who got a bit turned around courtesy of the ADD layout of the streets in Cádiz. We boarded a catamaran and crossed the Bahía de Cádiz to Puerta Santamaria, arriving at the Osbourne winery after a tour of the city. We snapped a group photo with the huge bull statue of course and then embarked on our tour of the wine cellars. I’m not much of a wine connoisseur so having the ins and outs of the wine making process explained in rapid Spanish was a little difficult, but interesting nonetheless. We saw the huge vessels they used to stomp around in and juice the grapes (I’ve always wanted to do that. Too bad that wasn’t included as part of the tour) and the antiquated cork machines. As always, our tour included entertaining tourists. This particular one featured a little boy with the most epic rattail I’ve ever seen. (He started fiddling with the cork machines and was promptly reprimanded by the tour guide. I was about to do the same thing, so good thing he bit the bullet for me.) Then came the tasting portion of the tour… keep in mind that this was at 11:00 in the morning. Hence, I wasn’t really feeling it, although some people in our group were not at all affected by the awkward hour. I tried a sip of each wine and then kept myself busy polishing off nearly all of our table’s tapas, all the while sneaking pictures of the rattail kid of course. We then meandered back to the port and caught another catamaran (the wind had picked up substantially, so we were all quite damp and seasick upon our arrival in Cádiz.) This was quickly remedied by a good old Pepa lunch however. Warner girls, I’ve decided that if Nancy ever abandons us, Pepa is going to be our new chef. I am fairly certain she would not disappoint.

Wednesday night brought about round two of Spanish spinning class and I was excited to receive fewer strange looks this time. I think they’re beginning to accept me as one of their own, especially since they like that I know all the words to the American songs. I was given an official laminated membership card to replace the dinky little paper slip I’d been using before and after class the instructor asked me if I’d taken spinning before. I replied “si, pero solo dos veces” and received a “¡Que bueno!”. I was excited. I can’t wait for Monday. To top it all off, I visited Antonía and my frutería on the walk home. After a thirty-minute conversation in which I also got to meet her husband and daughter, I left laden with her recommendations of paraguayos (a type of peach) and ciruelas (yellow, plum-like and my new obsession).

Then came some intense studying for Cultura and Grammatica at our café as well as the writing of my codigo de honor, which marks the official end of my English for the next two weeks. As we were traveling to the bodega, Professora Kietrys informed us that it was indeed time to write up and sign our contracts and decide how much English we would use for the remainder of the trip. Amy and I decided to go all Español except for fifteen minutes of English a day (for emergencies and when we’re just too tired to think solely in a foreign language) and communication with our families and friends at home. So potentially I could have committed myself to ONLY Spanish and anyone reading this blog would have had to promptly enroll in some intensive Spanish classes. J But I decided against that.

It was a little frustrating Thursday night during our cooking class, since most people in our group haven’t committed themselves to that much Spanish. To avoid the temptation of speaking in English, Amy and I ended up talking mostly with Diego and Elena, the two Spanish students that joined us for dinner. We bonded over homemade paella and they invited us to dinner next week. They want to take us to the most popular tapas street in Cádiz and introduce us to some authentic Spanish dining. Elena asked us for our email to figure out a time and place to meet and I just have to share this email. It’s without a doubt the greatest message ever to appear in my inbox. I’m keeping it FOREVER.

"Hello! We're Diego and Elena ( We were talking with your in paellas's time xD). This is the elena's emails. Soon we' re going to send email about we meet for eat at the evening. Kisses"

In addition to new Spanish amigos, Amy and I also scored some free tickets to see (drum roll please) HARRY POTTER tonight!!! I can’t even express how excited I am on here since I feel like exclamation points and smiley faces would just lose their meaning after typing one hundred or so. Our MundoLengua professor Rosilla had three tickets to distribute among our group and Amy and I beasted the number guessing game and will therefore be heading to Corte Ingles tonight at 9:30 for a Spanish Harry Potter experience. Should be quite interesting. We’ve reviewed the plot together so we aren’t completely confused. J J J J

Other than that, I am glad that it is el fin de semana. Pepa made us seafood pasta and delicious salad for lunch and I just woke up from a glorious siesta. Now off to the gimnasio and then to view la major película en el mundo (the best movie in the world). Tomorrow Amy, Pat and I are heading to Sevilla for the day. Some people from our group are leaving this afternoon and spending the night in a hostel but we decided we just wanted a day trip. So I’m sure this weekend will result in another long entry. ¡Hasta luego!