This is How Spaniards do Business

Ayyyye Madre Mia

So far my time in Spain has been really interesting. Some friends of Rebeca are in town and both of the families have kids so we have gone on some play dates which have been fun. I have enjoyed learning the culture and trying to figure out the language...The culture has been awesome but the language thing... Yeah... that one is a toughy... I will give you a couple of examples of why this has been difficult/amusing/confusing.

Example #1:

I am about to take the kids for a walk and I notice that they have packed a bunch of books into a Hannah Montana bag. (I know, the dreaded Hannah disease has spread here, you're welcome Spain) So I think, 'Great! We are going to read in the park, it's such a beautiful day, this is awesome!'. We got to the park, the children are chattering happily about something and as we approach the park, Paula comes up to me to say something and all I can understand is "los libros" and "es Legal, si?".. I respond "OF course it is legal to read books in the park!!". At this point I am pretty confused because how terrible is it that there are some places where it is illegal to read in public? What the heck?? But then it dawns on me, the kids are looking around and pointing at different families with children and I realize that they are not going to READ the books in the park, they are going to try to sell them to people. I can honestly say I was a little confused/embarrassed. Here I was with these four kids and they are about to just boldly go up to random people trying to sell books. I made sure to call Rebeca and make sure it was okay and while talking to her I realized that apparently this is no new thing, they seem to do this often. Cool.... At this point the kids have already talked to a couple of random families and tried to sell their extra toys and books and I have begun to walk about five to ten steps behind them. I was trying my hardest not to look like their ring leader but it was kind of hard when they would run up to me yelling "AIMEE AIMEE LOOK AT THE MONEY!!" At that point I would be like "ohhh yay..Keep it..Let's go play on the swings.."... Oh what the youth will do for five euros! I remember doing VERY random things for an extra buck but honestly I never sold my books in a park. The children's success rate was about 1 out of every 10 people and they finally got discouraged and played a little in the park. Thankfully I got a couple of pictures from the day so I will share them with you! :)

The little entrepreneurs themselves

That is victim number three that is about to be offered some gently used books. He said no.. Weird, right?

Example #2

The children and I are again walking to the park and one of the little girls asks me: "blah blah blah spanish word spanish word paseo". Obviously I didn't catch much of what she said so I just guessed at what she asked me.. Sometimes you can just say "Si" and it works perfectly and people don't really know that you don't know what the heck they are talking about. In my response I said "treinta minutos". Before I even finished my response the children burst into laughter and it took me about two minutes to calm them down and figure out what she had asked me... Which was "How long are you staying here (in Spain)"... Cooolll I just told them I was only staying for thirty minutes more... Oh the joys of being surrounded by a foreign language.

Those are all of the examples I have for now, I hope you enjoyed those two stories. It has been a fun and exhausting day.

Buenos Noches amigos!

~Amy