after quite an interesting, almost entirely indoor experience in miami, i boarded a flight to la paz about 24 hours after i was supposed to. i settled into my seat near an older gentleman from a city in the department in la paz. we made small talk, and for the most part, my spanish passed.
but the crowning moment for me was when i ordered a water. simple you may think. but i´ve got a history there.
in 2006 i quit my job and went to peru. i had been spending a lot of time and energy brushing up on my spanish before i left. i took a spanish class at new school and spent most of my work hours using online flash cards. i was heavily in training.
i was naive and scheduled a 7am international flight to lima with a layover in panama city (panama). but what i did not think about is that for international flights you need to be there 2 hours early (5am) but i would have to take a supershuttle from manhattan to the airport (pickup time 3:30am) and that late at night it would take me about an hour on the PATH train to get to manhattan. thus, i needed to leave the JC around 2:30 am. so it was decided my farewell party was best planned for 10pm the night before i left. and my farewell party revolved around the group´s favorite drink at the time.
which happened to be SPARKS.
so about 3 sparks in, i grabbed my giant duffle bag and backpack and headed into manhattan. by the time i finally got to the airport i was a mix of sleep deprived stupor and still shaking from the sparks. and then i tried to speak spanish to the ticket agent. i eventually got on the plane, and thought i could just relax eat some food, drink a drink i definitely knew how to say in spanish and take a nice long (and longed for) nap.
and the drink cart came around...."solo agua por favor"
and then the nice man responded with something that sounded like "ee-ay-lo"
yellow. no i do not want yellow water.
after asking "como" several times the man finally said "ice."
so simple. such a massive fail.
but this time, after ordering the chicken dinner and getting the right customs documents on the first try. i ordered agua again. and when asked i simply responded "no, sin hielo, porfa"
success. however small, i´ll take it.
but the crowning moment for me was when i ordered a water. simple you may think. but i´ve got a history there.
in 2006 i quit my job and went to peru. i had been spending a lot of time and energy brushing up on my spanish before i left. i took a spanish class at new school and spent most of my work hours using online flash cards. i was heavily in training.
i was naive and scheduled a 7am international flight to lima with a layover in panama city (panama). but what i did not think about is that for international flights you need to be there 2 hours early (5am) but i would have to take a supershuttle from manhattan to the airport (pickup time 3:30am) and that late at night it would take me about an hour on the PATH train to get to manhattan. thus, i needed to leave the JC around 2:30 am. so it was decided my farewell party was best planned for 10pm the night before i left. and my farewell party revolved around the group´s favorite drink at the time.
which happened to be SPARKS.
so about 3 sparks in, i grabbed my giant duffle bag and backpack and headed into manhattan. by the time i finally got to the airport i was a mix of sleep deprived stupor and still shaking from the sparks. and then i tried to speak spanish to the ticket agent. i eventually got on the plane, and thought i could just relax eat some food, drink a drink i definitely knew how to say in spanish and take a nice long (and longed for) nap.
and the drink cart came around...."solo agua por favor"
and then the nice man responded with something that sounded like "ee-ay-lo"
yellow. no i do not want yellow water.
after asking "como" several times the man finally said "ice."
so simple. such a massive fail.
but this time, after ordering the chicken dinner and getting the right customs documents on the first try. i ordered agua again. and when asked i simply responded "no, sin hielo, porfa"
success. however small, i´ll take it.
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