En serio! My family is wonderful! I was telling them today how I'm not gonna end up joining the choir because it's just not really my style, but I promised I'd show them videos from my acapella group at GW. And they were SO EXCITED FOR THAT (but my host dad was still like 'you should give the choir a try!')
So after dinner Fernando (host dad) brings out the iPad and tells me to bring up the VIIIIBES videos. I was hoping they might recognize some of the songs, at least the brothers (WHO BOTH CROWDED AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE TO SEE.. which made me so happy..). First I played Send Me On My Way.. then I played FAT BOTTOMED GIRLS which they at least recognized the name of the band. They thought it was so cool, they were laughing at Ben Tobias because he makes crazy faces/dances in the video.. and they thought Matt Wilson's beatboxing was AWESOME. I was so excited to impress them! Fernando bookmarked one of the videos on his iPod so YAY.
Haha, when I was searching for the videos, I typed in my youtube channel, and one of the brothers asked me if it was my channel because he saw my name.. and I wasn't sure if he was thinking of seeing what I had on it.. and I was like 'yeeeeeaaaaaah but I have videos on there from when I was really young aaaaand you dont want to see that....' hahaha
THEN Soraya and Fernando and I went into the kitchen to clean up after dinner and just TALKED ABOUT EVERYTHING EVER IN SPANISH EVER. First about trains, because Carlos brought in a coin that had been flattened by a train (Fernando works with one of the train stations around here).. it was so cute, when I was trying to follow along what Fernando was saying about trains (understanding them got easier as the night went on YAY), Carlos flashed me this big smile as if to say 'You have no idea what he's going on about do you?' BUT NO PASA NADA IT WAS A BONDING MOMENT.
Then we started talking about how in like.. If I go to Barcelona, I'll speak English all the time. Soraya was like, they will not answer you if you speak in Spanish. Their language is Catalun and they are very proud of it, they refuse to speak in Spanish. They'll either ignore you or, if they realize you're a tourist, politely ask if you speak English, and continue the conversation like that. It's this huge political thing. I knew there was some sort of 'thing' but I didn't know how legit it was.. Soraya told a story of how, even 30 years ago, when she visited Barcelona with her friends at age 16, they asked an older woman for directions somewhere (in Spanish), and she answered them, and it wasn't until an hour or so later when they were HOPELESSLY LOST that they found out that she had pointed them in the completely OPPOSITE direction because they weren't speaking Catalun. That's crazy!
Because I didn't realize Catalun is considered a whole other language.. that is spoken in Barcelona and Cataluña (claro) .. it's not a dialect, it's a whole different language that apparently is very similar to French. There's also another language (that I thought was just a dialect) called Vasco, or the official name is Euskera.. apparently THAT'S even more difficult to comprehend, it sounds like a Spanishy form of RUSSIAN?!!??! And in the Vasco region it's very similar, very hostile if you speak Spanish.. I just had no idea.
Then that got us into talking about accents, like the Argentinians vs the Cubans, and the English vs the Americans. I told them the story of how when I was little, I didn't understand a boy that told me to count to twenTy (and he pronounced the second T in twenty) because I had always been used to hearing it as 'twenny' ... And how since they take in so many American girls (they've been doing it for 12 years! sometimes more than one at a time), Soraya was in an English class (that was teaching British English) and when she went to say something, the teacher corrected her and said 'YOU SPEAK LIKE AN AMERICAN!' hahah
and THEN we got onto PALABROTAS which was SO exciting... They were using the swears they knew in English but with their accent it was SO SILLY SOUNDING I LOVED IT. I learned some words, but they aren't curse words, they're more like insults or just sort of mean things to call someone.. it depends on context? So like, someone has 'mala leche' ... that means 'oooh, that person's a bad egg'. And that's a stronger insult than this next one (but it's still not that bad). You can also call someone 'malange'.. which comes from the words 'mal ángel' (bad angel)... and that's just like... someone that is a friend of yours can be a 'malange' if they're being a jerk or mean for a second.. or even if you're just joking.
Aww man, we were talking for so long I can't remember it all..
At some point we got onto the word 'alucinar' which is literally 'hallucinate' but I guess they use it here to .. like if you see something SO INCREDIBLE AND BEAUTIFUL you say WOW I'M HALLUCINATING. And then the slang form of that is 'flipar'. And so HALLUCINATION got on the topic of drugs, and how America's sixties - like hippies, drugs, music, clothes, words (psychedelic?), politics.. everything.. well, for Spain, that happened in the 80s (after Franco)... and just SO MANY THINGS LEARNED TODAY.
I'm sure I'll remember more as I'm falling asleep and I'll POP UP and type them.. But it was so great. And when we were all like OKAY BEDTIME Soraya was like Hey Rachel you got some good practice in there!
AND I WAS LIKE YAY GRACIAS YAY.
Edit: So they were telling me that Teresa (abuela) is from Valencia, and there is a dialect in Valencia, where they basically use similar words but to mean totally different things...and so when she talks here she has to translate in her head to Castellano, but sometimes she forgets... SO NOW I KNOW IM NOT CRAZY when I can't understand her! Which is a lot! And when she repeats something she tends to do it in a different way and then I can understand her! So now I know I'm not TERRIBLE at Spanish, I just don't know Valenciana Spanish bahahh.
And they were like WE SEVILLANOS KNOW how to speak with proper pronunciation, but we just don't! Heheh that's okay. They said if I can understand a Sevillano, I can understand any Spanish accent. And that when I go to Madrid I'm gonna feel SO SMART because they talk slowly and clearly and with good pronunciation. YAYYYYY
Edit: Soraya was also saying how her mom is a 'machista' (like, chauvinist, men are the world) and how she's way more feminista, and how her mom is always like 'YOUR HUSBAND WANTS THIS BALABLHABHAB' and Soraya is like GURRRL NO ME IMPORTA he can get it himself! She was like, 'I'll cook the food, I'll wash the dishes, but you guys know what to do - you always serve yourself! CAUSE I'M NO WAITRESS AND I'M NO MAID' and it was so great. And then she was like AND I HATE HOW YOU GUYS LOSE YOUR LAST NAMES WHEN YOU GET MARRIED! THAT'S WHO YOU ARE! We don't do that here! heheheh que cute
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