yo hablo spanglish.

here's the thing... I started to post for today but I got caught up in (henna) tattooing a fingerbeard... (on my finger obviously...) so typing is a little hard now. Well worth it though... I now have the capacity to create numerous expressions with a slight move of the finger. Its actually a finger mustache, I guess.

Tonight we went out with a Uruguayo from the gym we joined. In particular the climbing wall (its called La Muralla.)
There have been times that, mostly because of the language barrier, our encounters are very awkward with lots of pauses and silence, but tonight the tension between us all faded quickly and we spent two or three hours at dinner conversing, mostly in spanish.
My favorite thing in Uruguay has been the people we've met, and any time we have spent in close companionship with a Uruguayo... and I realize that the conversation we maintain is typically geared towards the vocabulary that we know but when we get together with the friends we've made and we speak spanish, the progress I've made in three weeks is apparent... and I blow my own mind.

I was going to give up English & chocolate for Lent but tonight while we were at dinner Kara and I talked about it and really just decided that we should be speaking mostly in spanish not just for 40 days but all the time. So I guess its just bye-bye chocolate for Lent and (because i have a really phenominal and dedicated roommate) Spanish will be all the time. We do pretty well most of the time but hopefully we will do better.

Anyway, thats not much but its what is on my mind at the moment. When we were struggling with our conversation at dinner, Stefanie asked us why it is that when we stumble over spanish words and stay completely confused in conversations, it doesn't make us want to use spanish less, but use it more. In response I have to say that I am much more frustrated with not being able to have conversations than I am the struggle of learning. Its good I think because it give me momentum to rapidly grow. We do stumble through a lot of broken sentences and give up on a lot of failed attempts to convey thoughts but the fact of the matter is that 7 times out of 10 we are successful and can only get better. Plus, my spanglish es FENOMENAL.