Sunday, February 24th, 2013

Other than that one day we got caught in the rain downtown there has been surprising little rain.  A couple of nights I’ve heard a little while sleeping but last night we had a real downpour.  It just started pouring again at 7:45am but it only lasted 5 minutes.  

www.weather.com is predicting next Thursday through Monday with a 60% chance of precipitation in contrast to the 20% - 30% I had been seeing; and highs in the 70s instead of the 80s.  While today’s high temperature is predicted to be 85 Saturday it’s only supposed to be 73.  (I think the natives are going to freeze to death! Lol)  7:55 and it started pouring again but only lasted a minute.  At least it brought a little more coolness to the morning.

About 11am we took a taxi to her cousin Angel’s house.  I was carrying 2 mops and a book and Reina was carrying the umbrella and her purse.  Since we didn’t have money to pay for the taxi ride I understood that when we got there Angela would come out and give us money for the taxi.  When we got there Aunt Gloria came out and was talking to Reina.  I got out of the taxi and was standing there with the door open.  After a couple of minutes Reina motioned for me to close the taxi door.  A minute later the taxi took off.  Reina seemed to be ok with this until about 5 minutes later when she realized she had left the umbrella in the car.  Did the taxi driver see the umbrella in the back and figure it was worth more than the $2 fare we owed him and decided to take off? Who knows?  So now we’re down to one small umbrella.

We took a bus downtown and another bus to her mother’s house.  At her mother’s house I asked Reina if the microwave has a special button on it for popcorn and she said yes.  

Her sister Diony loaned us 80mil pesos.

We walked about 8 blocks to her friend Claudia’s house.  (On the way we walked past a public swimming pool.)  She is a seamstress, married with 2 very cute girls 5 and 7 years old and a cat.  She spent 3 years in Japan and speaks a little English.  Very nice couple.  

We then took a bus downtown and bought 2 large bags full of vegetables for 20,000 pesos.  Not because they were so large and heavy, but because we now only had a 50mil bill for the bus we ended up taking a taxi instead of walking 4 blocks to catch a bus.  So now we have about 42,000 pesos left with what might be at least 8 days to go before I can get at my March money.

6:30pm we walked a couple of blocks to a small grocery store and picked up a “carton” of 30 eggs and a package of arepas. 

Now we have time for a quick dinner before the Academy Awards.  If I can figure out which channel it’s on.  Found it on TNT but they use voice over in Spanish.  

Regarding Learning Spanish

I have a little 4” x 6” Composition Book I use to write down new words. For example, I saw several signs on stores that said “Muebles” so I wrote it down and later looked it up; it means “Furniture”.  Now I know.  I also brought with me software to learn Spanish: Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, and Bertlitz.  I also found an online course called Synergy Spanish at www.ShortcutToSpanish.com. It’s only $67 but you get a lot of free lessons before you have to buy anything.  I think I’ll probably switch between all of them.  And I have my own long-haired Spanish instructor (maestro in Spanish).  (Although I’m afraid she probably paid as much attention in her Spanish class as I did when I was taking English.  Lol.  She writes the same way she talks; without upper and lower case, without any punctuation, just one long run-on sentence.  That makes it more challenging to make sense of the Google translation.)

I’ve begun sort of a pen pal relationship with a man from Sycamore, Illinois who was born in Bogota and came to the US at about the age of 20.  He will be visiting Medellin next summer.  Here is his advice for learning Spanish:

“Good thing you are making the effort to learn the language!... But I warn you, it will not be easy. English was relatively easy for me (to) learn back in 68 when I arrived to the U.S. It took me about 6 months to understand the news on the TV set and after about a year, I was already able to manage. But that was years ago when I was younger, today it will probably take a lot longer. The point is you should really apply yourself for ONE YEAR. Doing at least 2 hours of homework every day - you know what I mean - but you will learn it... and once you have it, it's yours forever!....

"Soap operas" are fantastic tools for learning the language... it's the kind of language people use every day... and if the plot is interesting enough, so much the better right?

Make a "recording" of anything (person, radio, television), say 15 minutes..... AND REPEAT IT, MANY, MANY TIMES UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND EVERY WORD OF THOSE 15 minutes recording, even if it takes a whole month learning it... you WILL learn Spanish in a year... I GUARANTEE IT!  - That is why, you should record something INTERESTING.

If you have any questions related to "common" Spanish, I can help you with that. I forgot the "educated" version Spanish, including "accents and punctuation".... sorry... forgot about the "tildes" especially... lol”

 

I only made it through the Oscars until about 10pm.  Then my eyes were just too tired not to go to bed.