Ok, so my family reunion story was quite a hit. It wasn´t so funny for me at the time, but looking back, it is pretty comical. I would definitely have been cracking up if I were you all. So anyways, since everyone liked that story so much, I thought I would put together a special post dedicated to funny stories from my daily life here in Oviedo.
Let me just start by saying that my host mom is hilarious. She definitely doesn´t try to be, but the way she does things and says things just makes me laugh. Then, when we get together and mix our two native languages trying to communicate, it´s even funnier. The first few nights in Oviedo, especially my very first one, I could hardly understand a thing that she said to me. And to make it oh so much better, she just talked my ear off while talking a mile a minute. Well, I was super happy when my ear caught on so quickly. I am able to understand, or at least get the just, of pretty much everything she says to me. Well, most of the time. My host mom doesn´t have the best manners. When we´re sitting at dinner she will get going about something (and when she starts, there´s no stopping her), and food just starts flying out of her mouth and instead of stopping and slowing down, she just shoves more in. A lot of the time I can just tone her out and let her rant, but my favorite is when she tries to ask me questions. That´s always fun. I have a hard enough time understanding her super thick accent as is, and with food all in her mouth it is impossible. It just doesn´t happen. So, it´s like a sitcom with her jabbing her mouth away full of food and me trying really hard not to laugh and being like ¨uhh, what?!¨ I wish I could video tape it and watch it later because it is probably pretty entertaining.
So, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the beach with a bunch of friends from my group for the day. I asked my host mom if she could make me a sandwich that I could bring for lunch and she said, oh of course! Well, this was my first weekend, so I still had kind of a hard time understanding her, and she was saying something about me needing bread. Then, she took me to my window and showed me the bread store across the street and then gave me 1 euro. I thought she was telling me that she was going to give me cheese and an apple and then I can get some bread on my way out. Well, that was not the case, little to my knowledge. Just as I was running out the door, she stopped me and was like ¨Wait! You need to go get bread so I can make you a sandwich!¨ I was like OH! You should have said it that way before! So I ran across the street really quickly, ordered my bread (all by myself) and ran back up 4 flights of stairs for her to make my sandwich. It´s not that funny of a story, just an example of miscommunication/lack of understanding.
Here´s another story about me not understanding. (There´s a lot of these). Spanish accents are really hard to understand. Hands down. No argument. They say everything differently than I learned and they say different phrases since I learned Latin American Spanish. They pronounce their ¨s¨ like a ¨th¨ so you can just imagine. My host mom has a really thick accent too, so there have literally been times where I was like, I have no idea what you´re trying to say. Also, they do that German loogie hauk thing with their g´s and it´s pretty funny! Well, one night I asked my host mom to teach me how to cook something and got all excited. Well, she got a little carried away with her g action and accidentally made a HUGE snort after she was finished speaking. It was SO hilarious!!! I tried to hold in my laughter, but I had to pretend that I had to go to the bathroom really bad and ran out of the room cracking up! She tends to do things like this a lot.
Another lack of understanding story. The other night, oh it was the night of the huge surprise family reunion! Anyways, that night I was so drained and exhausted from that dang family reunion. My brain was just rejecting Spanish at this point and I was having a really hard time understanding my host mom. I was eating dinner and she started telling me about something. I just smiled and nodded as usual, but she trapped me in and started asking me questions. Well, I had no idea what she was saying. She was talking about some ¨athensor¨and I had no idea what that was. She was explaining it saying in went up. But I still didn´t get it. She goes, in English what is it? And I go the stairs? And she goes ya! (She doesn´t know English so that did not help). And I was like ok, what about them? And she was like did you use them? And I was like ya...And she was like how was it? And I was like, umm, fine. She could tell that we were not talking about the same thing and kept trying to get me to understand. I was just sitting there like, I´m not gonna get it lady. But she kept saying the same thing over and over, and getting louder and louder, and closer and closer to my fae. So I was just sitting there starring at her with a blank stare while she was yelling at me all in my face. Finally, I couldn´t take it anymore and just started laughing and left the room. Then, it hit me that she said ¨ascensor¨ which is the elevator. I felt really stupid. Especially, since I did take the elevator and something was wrong with it and when it got to the third floor there was this big banging noise. It scared me so bad! Anyways, she was trying to ask me if that same thing happened to me because it happened to her, but I was having a stupid moment and didn´t get it. Oh well, I got a good laugh out of it.
Yet, ANOTHER not understanding story. Surprise, surprise. So, ever since I´ve gotten here people have said something WAY different than anything I learned for goodbye. I could not figure out what they were saying and it was really confusing me. Sometimes it sounded like ¨Tau-lo¨, sometimes ¨Sta-lo¨, and sometimes ¨Ta-lo¨. Well, either way, I was like oh my gosh, what are they saying? It must just be this really weird word that they just use here in Oviedo. Well, my host mom said it to me one day and it clicked! (I just figured this out like last week too). They say ¨Ta-lo or Sta-lo¨ and it´s just short for ¨Hasta luego¨ which means see you later. I felt dumb, but at the same time how in the world am I supposed to know that?! I mean, I don´t say ¨Ee-ter¨ for see you later. Anyways, I feel pretty cool now that I figured that out and that I´m in on the lingo.
Alright, here´s my last story for now. (You´re probably like oh good! I´m tired of reading all this boring stuff that just she finds funny!). This happened today while I was walking to school. My apartment is about a two minute walk from the University, so I usually leave about 10 minutes before class starts just to be safe. I´m usually fine with five, but I like to mosey. Anyways, this morning, I was kind of running late so I was walking pretty quickly. Well, I noticed that someone was following me, but I just kept on treking. This person kept getting closer and then I heard them whistle and say something in Spanish. I figured out it was a guy and kinda started to freak out a bit. But I didn´t look back and kept going. Well, he kept whistling and commenting louder and louder and kept getting closer. I turned into school and I could tell he was still following me, so I turned around completely freaked out and ready to kick some butt. Well, I look down and his dog was following me. He was whistling at his dog and yelling the dog´s name to get him to quit following me. Ya, I felt dumb. The dog was super cute too!! I couldn´t help but laugh to myself.
Alright, stay tuned for more!! Next, I will probably talking all about the food, so get excited.
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