I am here in Antigua. I am very, very tired. I am safely ensconced at Callejon del Burrito. The Internet works only if I sit outside of Maria’s door in the garden behind the portón. It’s close to 8:00 and the temperature is still short-sleeves pleasant. I’m glad to see my volcanoes again. They don’t look a day older. Neither does Don Toí±o.
Here are some conversations from today, translated into English for your convenience. GA is me, and SS is Spanish-Speaker.
SS: What is your flight number?
GA: Five-nine-eight.
SS: Five hundred ninety-eight?
GA: What?
SS: Five hundred ninety-eight?
GA: Five-nine-eight.
_____
GA: Five: Where is?
SS: Gate five?
GA: Yes, five.
SS: Where is your flight going?
GA: Huh?
SS: Guatemala?
GA: Guatemala.
SS: Go over there, turn [?], follow the [?] and then [?].
GA: Thank you very much.
_____
GA: Do you take dollars at this store?
SS: Yes. Would you like some coffee?
GA: I think so.
SS: Small?
GA: Tiny.
SS: Here you go.
GA: Do you have for it a … to cover?
SS: Here. And would you like something to eat?
GA: I … I don’t know. Just a minute.
SS: Okay.
GA: Yes, I’ll have this ice cream here.
SS: The cookie?
GA: Yes, the cookie.
SS: Which one to you want. There’s [?] or [?] or chocolate or [?]—
GA: Chocolate, please.
Well now, what a pleasant surprise. I was expecting just an “I’m here, I’m safe” post, and instead, I found one that made me giggle merrily for hours! Really funny stuff. I’m chortling aloud in my darkened Chilean room, which is alarming the spiders that live on my ceiling. Please post more.
I always get thrown off by 500 too. JEEZ, Spanish, must you be so contrary as to have a different morpheme that means the-five-in-five-hundred than you use for the-five-in-fifty and plain-old-five? It breaks the pattern of the hundreds, and it’s just fussy!