GRA-THI-AH

That is the correct way to pronounce ´thank you here in Spain. Yup, add a lisp, swallow the S, and there you have it! Pretty crazy, and difficult to understand when words like és become ehhh. Or phrases like ´mas o menos´ become mao meno. But hopefully it will come to me...hopefully.

Well, I am once again tapping away in an internet cafe, and actually, I am slowly getting over my fear of speaking Spanish, by accepting the reality that I kind of suck. My conversations with my host family, which actually consisted of my host mom talking to me and me saying ´sí´ every once in a while, were relatively successful. We talked about the environment and global warming, the Basque terrorist cell, and even, yes, even Julianne Moore´s massive amount of freckles...hehe. I think, now, with everything settling into place, I am really, really really begining to miss everyone. Its still hard to be so far, and still, I have always been weird, so people don´t really get me here just yet, hopefully, they will? Its okay, I mean, I will survive, but now, four months is becoming solid and intimidating.

Language wise, I understand what is happening. The thing is that I think it was just about understanding the gist, not every words. And I did manage to make a few reasonable sentences.The thing I forgot about languages though, is that it may be difficult for me to understand my host family, it even more difficult for them to understand me. I try to string sentences, and use the accent, but they strain to understand me. I think the lisp is the hardest, because there are very strict rules, lisp Zs and Cs only if before E and I. My natural desire to lisp the S just makes me have an actual lisp, which is not okay. I guess time will tell if I pick up the lisp, or drop attempts at it all together!

Today, actually, was a fun and intense trek up the Sierra Nevadas and through the Alhambra. It took about six hours to see everything, the intricately decorated walls of the castle to the older soldiers quarters to the beautiful but boring gardens of the Generalife. Did I mention it was hot? And sunny? And I am now burned in a very weird way? Outside of that, it was amazing, the walls of the castle were unreal, and seeing them in real life, and not in a text book, was just beyond words. I tried to take pictures, but honestly, sometimes, it just ruins it. The only flaw: NO LION FOUNTAIN!!! It´s under renovation for now, but I do hope that at least part of it will return before I leave the place. A funny tidbit: our tour was in Spanish, and at different points, Spanish people joined in and walked around with us. It was pretty funny because we are all still pretty clearly American.

I guess thats all for now! Adio!