Deluxe Apartment in the Sky

I've moved nearly every two years for the past 13, but something about making a move within Mexico City had me out of sorts. I was having meltdowns, forgetting important events, and making crazy talk. And, a few things happened -- unrelated to the move -- that triggered my angry button. Finally, though, we're all moved in, and we are hooked up with all our utilities, cable, internet, a new fridge, microwave, and washer/dryer (I've never had a washer/dryer in my apartment, so I am over-the-moon excited about doing laundry).

The linguistic debilitation that I thought would happen never came to pass, although I highly recommend studying this link and this one before attempting polite phone conversations in Spanish. Because phone Spanish just ain't what they say on the streets. In fact, I think customer service derives great pleasure in finding ways to complicate phrases like "Who's calling?" into "With whom do I have the great pleasure and luxury of speaking with today?"

Of the new words I learned during the move, the word volado appeared a lot. I believe it derives from the verb volar (to fly), and it refers to the act of doing this:

Hoisting objects up or down the side of a building

Like our way-too-big couch that we will be cutting in half the next time we move

Figuring out how to get the couch into the apartment was a feat of engineering, and the good 'ol folks at Mudanzas Gou (whom I 100% recommend if you need to move in, out, or within Mexico) carried it up 15 flights of stairs to the roof and lowered it one floor to our apartment on the 14th floor. Do we sound like the Jeffersons?? "Well we're movin on up, to the east side. To a deluxe apartment in the sky."

In the daytime, you can see the mountains to the north of Mexico City. Better than that, you can see the traffic whirring around you, but you don't hear it!

The view at night is something pretty spectacular.

Friends, Moving, and Losing Your Linguistic Elegance

We're rounding out our second year here in the DF this week, and there have been so many changes/transitions in the past few weeks to make me feel like we're starting this adventure from scratch.

One of the most difficult things about living abroad is seeing the friends you've made leave. This summer, we said goodbye to six friends, all of whom moved to far away places. I suppose it's in mental storage that this happens amongst the Mexico City expat community, but it never fails to bother me. I am a creature of routine and comfort, so if you leave me, be assured that you have ruffled my feathers. :)

We are also uprooting ourselves from the lovely boho Colonia Roma to move to a place closer to Nick's work. We decided against the apartment a block away (in hindsight, a very good thing since a new club has just opened across the street, and they play freakishly loud music from Wednesday to Saturday) and will be moving to a new neighborhood which, from many accounts, is also a very amiable place. All I ask for is good street food, ok? Preferably less than two blocks from my door. Thank you.

And, related to the move, I know it'll really feel like starting over when I have to make contact with the utilities, cable, and phone people. As happens every time I encounter these people, blood rushes to my face, the temperature in the room suddenly rises, and I become linguistically debilitated to the point of providing ridiculous answers to standard questions.

Examples of linguistic debilitation:

Census taker: How many bathrooms do you have in your house?

Husband : 95 (the number of meters in our apartment)

Census taker: Do you speak any indigenous languages?

Husband: Yes

Census taker: (mystified) Which ones?

Husband: English

Store clerk: ¿Con quien le atendió? (Who helped you?)

Me: Mi nombre es Alice

Store clerk: (annoyed) No, no, no. ¿Con quien le atendió?

Me: Alice

Store clerk: Un segundo...

(only after post-phone reflection did I realize what he was saying)

In the next few weeks, I will be making quite a few "Why hasn't your service worker showed up the past three times he's made an appointment with me?" conversations, but, hopefully, all my insides won't come unraveled. But, if they do, I'll make a note of it so we can all have a good laugh.

Learning eh-slang via YouTube

We're coming on **two** years here in Mexico, and I'm finally getting around to understanding and using slang. Which pretty much means I'm finally learning to speak Spanish... While I highly recommend the blog Effective Swearing in DF for lovely explanations of slang, I find this YouTube sensation, Werevertumorro, to be pretty amusing. He teaches me lots of useful slang, and I like his social commentary on the craziness that often goes on here.

See how many references to Mexican pop culture, TV, and futbol you can get in this video:

I'm looking for the Tofurería

Yesterday, I walked to the Zona Rosa to buy tofu at this one Korean store that sells homemade tofu. Every time I go, though, I'm never really sure what street it's on. Londres or Hamburgo? London or Hamburg?

That's how it goes here. Streets in the same neighborhood are grouped thematically. Since the Korean stores are in Colonia Juárez, they are mostly named after European cities, like Hamburg, London, or Florence. In my colonia, the streets are named after Mexican states; in Colonia Cuauhtémoc, rivers; in Colonia Nápoles, US cities; and in classy Polanco, thinkers and scientists like Aristotle and Galileo. I suppose all streets can't be named Benito Juárez...

In addition to confusing street names, some stores have no name or, rather, a generic name ending with -ería. Take whatever it is you're selling -- frutas, for example -- add an -ería to the end of it, and your name becomes frutería. So we have chocolaterías, joyerías (jewelry stores), neverías (ice cream stores), jugueterías (toy stores), tintorerías (drycleaners), pozolerías (pozole stands), taquerías, etc.

Well, the Korean store that sells tofu not only sits on a nondescript street, it also doesn't have a name. Really, no sign. Nothing to identify itself except by the piles of napa cabbage in the doorway. So, in the art of adding -ería to whatever's for sale, I'm going to give the nameless Korean store that sells tofu, tofurería. To the kimchi store around the corner, kimchirería. And to the non-existent, I hope you open soon pho restaurant, phorería.

Another reason I can't fully be vegetarian

Photo by Phigonggol (Flickr)

#1 Music Video (for learning Spanish)

This song by Calle 13, "No Hay Nadie Como Tú" (There's No One Like You), is a fun way to learn Spanish. If you learn the words to this song, my guess is that you can add over 100 distinct nouns and adjectives to your vocabulary (I didn't count but probably enough to order a taco -- what else could be more important than this?!?). Lyrics here

Radio Spanish

Last week, I was driving to work, had forgotten my iPod at home, and in my long (read: so slow that I saw a man reading a novel at the wheel) commute, I turned to one of the pop-y rock radio stations. Not only did I find that it helped pass the time in a karaoke sort of way, but it boosted my Spanish self-esteem!

It was something very supernatural. Poof! I was suddenly understanding everything the DJ was saying. It made me quite happy to realize that my Spanish intelligence level is now about that of a Spanish DJ's commentary! Like many of you, we're out to conquer the Spanish language, and we take the small successes like we just walked the moon.

That first phone call! That first trip the bank! I'm telling you, people, listening to the radio and understanding the DJ was momentous! If you've been here awhile and been intimidated like me to try it out, I have to say that it's highly recommended for a Spanish self-esteem booster. Stay away from the talk radio -- your best bet is to go with the radio stations that play the same 10 pop songs on repeat all day long. :)

Some drive and some read the paper

(no worries, no wheels were in motion when this picture was taken)

Buenos...Buenos...?

I kind of feel stupid for still not knowing the rules of when to say buenos días, buenas tardes, or buenas noches, but when an annoying street musician stepped on my bus on Monday, he fumbled his greeting with "Buenos...buenos...", stared down at his watch (it was nearing 1 PM), finished with "tardes", and ended with an awkward smile. Maybe I'm not the only one who can't seem to internalize when to say what. Many times, I'm caught saying one greeting and receive a completely different greeting in reply. For example, around 1 PM today, I said buenas tardes to someone in passing, and he replied back with a buenos días.

Now, in the US, there appear to be more clear delineations between what's morning, afternoon, and evening: say a morning greeting until noon, an afternoon greeting until dusk, and an evening greeting after dusk. If you say good morning after noon, you're likely to receive a giggle. Not here. It is perfectly fine to say buenos días after 12 PM and buenas tardes when it's dark. I seriously can't figure it out. The rules of when to say what are nebulous, at best -- very similar, I find, to the rules of this game we call driving.

Meeting Mafalda in Buenos Aires

This week, we're in Buenos Aires for some work and play. Besides trips back to the US, this is our first trip to another country, and we've been reflecting on the enormous differences we see here and back home.

Of the main differences we've experienced is the sense of safety. Don't get me wrong, I feel safe in Mexico City when taking the necessary precautions, but now I realize that I take A LOT of precautions in Mexico to get through the day safely. Here, we can drink tap water, hail a taxi off the street, walk where we want to go at 2 am, and take the subway without bear-hugging our belongings. I'd gotten pretty accustomed to a vigilante lifestyle in Mexico City, and, whew, it feels freeing to let loose a bit.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the loveliness of Buenos Aires (which, honestly and ironically, has much more pollution than Mexico City), but what I really wanted to inform you of was my run-in with Mafalda. She's only the most cutest and clever little girl in Argentina, and her comics are super, especially if you're a novice at Spanish and needing some motivation. Mafalda's been a great Spanish teacher, and when I saw her on a bench in the San Telmo neighborhood, it seemed like destiny. We sat down for a small chat, I had my picture taken with her, and went on my way. It was a fantastic way to start the trip!

Mafalda lives on a bench on Defensa Street in San Telmo in case you want to hang out with her sometime, too.

Spanish Blunders

Has anyone else noticed how commercial and prevalent Breast Cancer Awareness Month is now? I first noticed it from watching NFL -- the big boys looking tough in their pink jerseys. Then I noticed Mexico had turned pink, too. They turned the Ángel de la Independencia pink this week, and when I was shopping at one of the big grocery stores last weekend, I noticed I could even buy a pink fry pan in support of breast cancer research.

When I looked up information about it, the papers were calling it "cáncer de mama", which I took to mean "mother's cancer". I thought that was a little misleading since men and non-mothers get breast cancer, too. When Nick came home from work, I told him about it, and we laughed over its seemingly ridiculous name.

The next day, he went to work and was talking it over with a co-worker and told Nick that, "No, it's not cáncer de mamá (mother's cancer), it's cáncer de mama (breast cancer)!"

Mamá, mama, papá, papa... who knows how long I've been calling mothers "breasts" and fathers "potatoes". I'm super lazy about accents in writing and in speaking, but I think I'll start being more diligent in the future. And if I've ever called you a mama, I'm sorry. :)

Meet Mr. Tengo Miedo

Mr. Tengo Miedo is a YouTube legend. Get together with a group of Mexicans, and when the timing's right, repeat the following words with increasing intensity: "Tengo miedo, tengo miedo, TENGO MIEDO!!" (I'm scared). Then, as if you unlocked the magic words, everyone will erupt into laughter.

Apparently, Juan Pablo Carrasco was so inflamed with the police for wanting to check his blood alcohol level that he tried to avoid taking a breathalyzer test by repetitiously yelling the now famous phrase "Tengo miedo!" If you, too, have fears of any kind -- the police, the dark, the man next door -- join Juan Pablo in his campaign to END ALL FEAR. Or, add more joy and laughter to the world by downloading the ringtone for 10 pesos.

Crazy Man in Spanish Class & Calderón Legalizes Drugs (sort of but not totally related)

In every Spanish class I've taken here, there's been some Columbine/Virginia Tech crazy that makes me afraid to go to class. In the fall, there was a fella from the US that didn't like a girl in class. He was so frustrated with her one day that he let her have it, insulted the way she spoke Spanish, walked out, and never came back. It shook us all up, and even I was left in tears because of the sheer meanness that some people can have within them.

This summer, I switched language schools, and there was one very manic Korean guy. He had a bad experience in Mexico and seemed to want to take revenge on the teacher and all Mexicans. When we learned a new grammatical structure, he would practice it by bashing Mexicans. For example, "If you trust a Mexican, you will lose all your money" or "You can get whatever you want in Mexico if you bribe a cop."

Then, on Monday this week, we got into a discussion about the legalization of drugs, and the Korean guy insisted that marijuana was legalized a few months ago. Everyone disagreed with him, so he left the room, called his lawyer friend, and went to the library to print out proof (but he ended up printing an op-ed piece). His friend -- apparently the authoritative god for this guy -- reaffirmed that the law had passed. Our homework was to find our own proof, and we all came back with the same Reuters article: that the law had passed in the Congress in April 2009 and was awaiting the President's signature.

Well, this guy was beyond upset that the teacher didn't believe him, and at that point, I thought he was going to pull out a gun. He threatened to bring in his lawyer friend, and he said that he cannot respect a person that does not change their mind after being given definitive proof. Anyway, it was clear he had his mind made up despite our definitive proof, and it was also clear to me that "one's word" seems like a very important cultural value in Korea. Oh, the joys of our United Nations discussions in Spanish class...

And, now, after all the drama and Mexican disrespect, here is the TRUTH: Calderón finally signed the law this week, and many types of drugs are now legal in Mexico in varying proportions. No more crazy debates in Spanish class about the legality of drugs in Mexico because it's here. W-O-W. Imagine what this weekend is going to be like?!?!

Keeping Informed

I've been very disturbed lately by the turn of events in the war on drugs here in Mexico. If you haven't been keeping up, El Universal is reporting that 16 federal police officers have been killed since Saturday's arrest of La Familia's high commander, Arnoldo Rueda Medina, or "La Minsa". In retaliation, members of the La Familia gang have ambushed (by gunfire and grenades) police in the state of Michoacán and the surrounding states. 

Nearly all of these attacks are directed toward those involved in the drug trade (i.e. police, mayors, politicians, activists), so it obviously doesn't affect my life directly except to make me very moved to think more about my role. It's an awkward place to be in as an outsider with an American perspective, few language skills, and no voting rights, but what I can always do is be informed and thoughtful about what goes on.

I mostly use El Universal online because it's free and Reforma is not. One of the cool Google tools I use a lot is the Google Translate button on my toolbar. If you go here, you can drag one of 43 language options up to your toolbar and Google Translate will automatically set to work on translating the entire web page to your preference. So, I set mine to English, and once I'm at a web page that I need help understanding, I click on my "English" (what I named it) button, and Voila! the page is loosely translated to English for me. Not perfect but comprehensible. And if you know some Spanish, you will even start recognizing why some things are translated the way they are. 

Mnemonics for an Aging Brain

I'm sure people say the same about English names, but Spanish names are starting to sound the same to me. For example, Berenice and Beatrice; Alfonso, Adolfo, Alberto, and Alfredo; Rodrigo, Roberto, Ricardo, Rogelio, Ronaldo... see what I mean? Notice the pattern?

There are so many names that start and end with the same letters, and if you reel through the Spanish names you know, almost all names in Spanish end in a vowel. It is quite the opposite in English, not only because our US of A is so culturally diverse, but Americans have mastered the art of creative nomenclature. Just a few illustrious examples from my teaching career: Dequante, Demetria, Zoe, Kailisha, Arthurlon (what was her mother thinking?), Diamond, Davion, Quintrese, Asia, Kalen, Deonte...

Learners of English might well find these names just as confounding as I find Spanish names. In fact, English names are more discombobulating because there's absolutely no pattern, forget about phonics and spelling rules, AND one can hardly identify an individual's gender based on name alone. Hmm... this makes my problem of mixing up same-sounding names not such a bad problem to have after all.

In order to unmix the Rodrigos, Robertos, Ricardos, Rogelios, and Ronaldos of the Latin world, I have devised a mnemonic system of associating these names with something else. For example, our new doorman (gracias a dios!!) is named Alfredo, but now he's "Fettuccine Alfredo" to me. Nick's friend, Ricardo, is "Ricky Ricardo". Neighbor Rodrigo gets a whole 'nother name of "Annoying One Who Slams the Door". It's a handy system I've installed in my aging brain, but it's not fool-proof. There are some names my brain seems intent on mixing up. Like Berenice and Beatrice--they stump me every time. 

Cinco de qué?

Happy Cinco de Cuatro, everyone! Makes all of us who aspire to speak Spanish feel a little better... :) The first lady nailed it: "Feliz Cuatro de Mayo!" 

                                                                                                                                   Getty Images

Advancing your Spanish Skills the Hard Way

I've been feeling such a slump in my Spanish language acquisition lately that I thought a hearty dose of advanced level Spanish might do me some good. I've conquered the beauty salon; now it's time to visit the doctor and the dentist. What more difficult place might there be to practice the foreign language skills you don't have? 

Actually, I really do need to see a doctor and a dentist here (no worries, just general maintenance), so for anyone out there in the Mexico City reading area, I'd really appreciate your suggestions and any advice you think necessary for a first-timer in the medical realm of Mexico. I prefer someone able to speak a little English since I actually don't want a hot and heavy conversation in medical Spanish. That I'll be ready for next year...maybe.

Reading and Watching Spanish

In our first month here in Mexico, I bought a copy of the newspaper La Jornada because a friend said that it would be a really helpful way to learn colloquial Spanish. It didn't take me long to realize that nothing on the page was comprehensible to me and that newspaper writing, especially the titles, used odd tenses, like the passive or inversive voice. (i.e. "Man's eyes gouged out by sharp object as he walks on street" instead of the usual active voice of "Sharp object gouges out man's eyes." True story, by the way, from the newspaper. If only you could see the picture!) It was so discouraging (not to mention disgusting) to me that I haven't bought a newspaper since. 

However, recently, in an effort to get connected with what the mainstream is reading and watching, and because I have a better grasp on the language, I started watching the Spanish news and reading online Spanish newspapers (like just two or three weeks ago). Actually, it was by accident that I started watching the Spanish news. I was at the airport in the American Express lounge, and they had Channel 11 news on. Without knowing it, I had my eyes on the screen, understanding almost everything they were saying. The move from avoiding the Spanish channels to now looking for the news, I think I've hit a big milestone in learning Spanish. The first 200 channels on my TV were once unknown to me, but I'm slowly learning which stations here are the comparable ABCs, NBCs, and CBSs of Mexico. I know it seems kooky to have avoided 200 stations for so long, but in this day and age, when you can watch almost any US TV program here, there is little holding me back from those channels and a lot of mental resistance to watching the Spanish channels. I still have to use Google Translate and the dictionary on occasional words, but with this new addition to my Spanish life, I think I have overcome the beginner's slump.

Just one really quick observation about the news here. I've been watching some of the online videos on El Univeral, supposedly a more reputable news source here, and the narco videos all seem to have movie-like music in the background. This country is already skeptical of Calderón's efforts to stamp out the violence--I don't think movie music helps the public understand the gravity of the situation. A school was taken hostage this week in Reynosa, and there's movie music to entertain us as we watch!

The Spanish Ac-quisition

I love teachers--period-- but especially those who find ways to make content interesting for their students. Señor Jordan, a Spanish teacher in Missouri, composes videos for his students to learn some of the more difficult aspects of Spanish (i.e. the inordinate amount of verb tenses!) Here's a cool sample of what he brings into the classroom.

Thinking about his grueling teaching schedule, then to go home and film and edit Spanish videos--qué increíble! My routine after teaching looks more like this: sit on couch, close eyes, prop mouth wide open, and fall asleep very fast. Like a lot of talented teachers I've seen drawn away by the lure of a higher salary (who can blame them?), I do believe they will pluck his talent from the walls of public school soon and send him on to more profitable means. The next Pimsler? SJSLI--Señor Jordan's Spanish Language Institute? Or perhaps he'll keep on keepin' on... Nonetheless, thanks to Señor Jordan for continuing to set the bar high!