PWR - People Without Rides

We have fully embraced being what Mark and Willie Walker call PWRs. We managed to carry a 21” flat screen TV (can you believe we have a digital TV?), a large floor fan, a folding laundry rack, and a few bags of various Ikea goods all on the train home – including multiple line transfers.

We’re looking at the TV as critical aspect of our Spanish lessons. We want to be able to listen to Spanish in a no pressure situation. Like the long line at the store after ringing up our TV and fan and various other bits and pieces when the cashier said the credit card wouldn’t go through without a passport and we didn’t have it, and all the people in line didn’t think this was very funny and then you start to get nervous and it’s hard to remember the right words as you’re thinking as fast as you can about how to get cash fast and say you’ll be right back as the peeps in line start to get restless. Anyway, Anna is in watching Real Madrid right now (eat your heart out Lou). Course, we can’t understand a word they are saying….

I have no hesitation most of the time to plunge in with my dozen verbs and extremely limited vocabulary and mostly present tense. But it’s just dang boring. My communication is boring. “Where is the …?” "I would like..." “We need to …” but since there are only a few verbs to choose from, there aren’t very many things I can tell people we need to do.

Nonetheless, I was so pleased with myself yesterday for telling our wonderful porter Benito that “Tengo un problema grande.” Though I completely botch everything – for some odd reason I remembered that problema is un problema instead of una problema – despite what you’d think. So I was smiling inside at this tiny victory at not sounding like a foreigner (HA, HA, HA).

Once we get life basics in order, language lessons are next. I’m already really tired of speaking like a 2 year old.