Cultural extravangza

A wonderful thing about Europe is its collision of various cultures and languages. Sitting on the banks of the Guadalquivir eating my lunch one day, I heard German, Italian and Spanish within an hour. And recent exposure to new cultures got me thinking how many I encounter each day.

My Friday night in five words: blind date with an Arab. It was the first time meeting someone from Morocco, hearing Arabic and discussing religion with a non-practicing Muslim (whatever that means). Interesting, to say the least.

The rest of the weekend, while I was sick and lying in bed--causing some serious apathy--I decided something had to change, I needed to do something, and quick. I spent some time with the most famous Man in all the world; a Nazarene. I heard from a blessedly brilliant Scot named Oswald. And I hung out with my very favorite Russian named Alyosha. His brothers Dmitry, Ivan and Smerdyakov had to come along, as long as their abominable father. If you have never spent time with any of the aforementioned men, you should.

Now I'm listening to Spanish music and I have to keep commanding my brain to write in English (and I am continually correcting spelling mistakes). This reminds me of a common occurrence in my communication with Spaniards: they often seem to forget their own Spanish as they assume I know none. Last night, trying to order an ice cream sundae to split with Marina, I had a fun game of charades with the waiter (not that I necessarily wanted to play). A girl nearby had ordered an amazingly-delicious looking sundae, and Marina and I were smitten. I said "we want one of those things, that that girl just ordered" (I'm sorry--I never learned 'sundae" in Spanish. What a gap in my vocabulary!) He starts saying single words or small phrases, trying to communicate. Then, he stops speaking and just tries hand motions. What? That's way harder, man. As he beckoned me over to the ice creams so I could choose which kinds, I asked how many I could select. He held up two, then three fingers. Really? I almost laughed out loud and then, in perfectly comprehensible Spanish, ordered which kinds we wanted. Things like this happen often--it's a game of verbal chicken. I keep speaking Spanish and they, broken English or some odd sign language, until one of us changes. Often, the conversation concludes with their "gud-bey!" and my "¡adios!"

Post script; I go by "Juli" here (which sounds like "you-lee" or a spanish-ized "Julie") because of the atrocious way Spaniards pronounce my name: Ju-lee-in? Shoo-lee-in? Shu-lee-an? No. Juli, por favor.