Monday, July 1, 2013

Quiero ir al "Colegio de Hogwarts"

This morning at my Spanish lesson I met a super nice girl from the Netherlands who I might meet up with in Salta this weekend. Our tutor made a mistake and scheduled us at the same time, so we shared the lesson. Neither of us minded. Lessons mostly consist of Spanish conversation periodically interrupted by corrections. Then we read through my written essay together, and he corrects as we go. Then I read Spanish out loud, whether it's long numbers (veinticinco mil, setecientos cuarenta y dos) or a history passage. It's a lot of fun and the two hours go by really fast.

My tutor, whose name is Sergio, strongly recommended that I start reading in Spanish, so on the way to work I bought a copy of the second Harry Potter book in Spanish. I read a few pages on the subway home, and somehow everything is funnier when it takes more effort to understand. There's one part when Harry's fat, mean uncle Vernon is yelling at him during breakfast. From the next sentence, all I could decipher was "fried egg" and "mustache" and I laughed out loud on the subway because I understood that there were bits of fried egg in his mustache. If I had read that in English, I probably wouldn't even have smiled. Apparently Harry Potter is even better in Spanish.

I spent most of the day inside working on the computer, but at the very end my boss sent me to this secret little plaza called Paseo de la Plaza. Walking on the street, it looks like the entrance to a movie theater, but if you step inside you can walk through and then come out in this open-air plaza with trees and benches and restaurants all around. It's hidden in the center of a city block, with exits on both sides. And there are stairs off to the left, with a wooden walkway above, and it's so peaceful and quiet. It's like entering Narnia through the wardrobe, except not quite as magical. I wish it was closer to my office so that I could take my lunch there to eat on a bench.

Another highlight of my day was the Skype conversation my sister set up between me and my grandparents. So good to see their faces and hear their voices! Since I write this blog mostly for them, it sometimes feels like a one-sided conversation, but they assured me they were reading it every day.

I don't have any interesting photos from today, so instead I'll post a random one from another time:

street art in Buenos Aires

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