"One extra-mini coffee with milk and a single ice cube, por favor"

When I lived in California, I scoffed at Starbucks coffee and the suckers that paid for it. It was so easy to find better quality coffee at more reasonable prices in all those cute little independent coffee shops that offer a better atmosphere and overall coffee experience. Even the chains that compete with Starbucks, like Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, or Peet's Coffee, for example, had them beat. On the few occasions I stopped in a Starbucks, out of pure convenience because they're located on just about every corner, and oftentimes on the same street within a coffee bean's throw from one another, I normally ordered a simple coffee with milk, hot or iced, depending on the weather, and when I had $$ burning that hole in my pocket, I'd surely splurge on a frappuccino. As exception, I was always fond of the festive flavors, and this October, I'm especially missing the pumpkin spiced latte, or any flavored coffee for that matter!!!

The days of drinking Starbucks coffee solely out of convenience have since passed. For one, because it's not even an option to me anymore, as the ONLY Starbucks on this island that I now live on is located INSIDE the airport terminal. Even if I was craving Starbucks, I'd have to first purchase an airline ticket to get to it. Hey, another excuse to travel, right? The other reason being the complete and utter absence of iced coffee on the island, leading me to fiend for a Starbucks iced drink of any kind to the point of enthusiastically giving the baristas all my $$, like a crack addict desperately pleading "just give me my iced coffee, I need it!" any and every chance I get.

You'd think it would be easy to find ice cold drinks here seeing as it's an island that enjoys a year-round mild climate (translation: never-ending summer), but alas I've been subjected to too many room temperature fruit smoothies, lukewarm coffees, and tepid teas to count. Just to share one representative example, I found a cute coffee shop with an ambiance that I found pleasing and requested a large iced coffee with milk (some very distinct words that don't seem to go together in Las Palmas) and in turn was given a steaming hot coffee with milk in what reminded me of a tall shot glass, with a single melting ice cube, hence the "lukewarm" coffee previously mentioned. Umm ya, so I politely asked for more ice and they gave me the second disapproving glance of the day before telling me they don't have anymore ice...?!?!? I tried a few more times in other places, specifying that I wanted my coffee in a regular water cup with 3 cubes of ice (more disapproving glares), but since the coffee is still served piping hot, I still end up with watered down coffee (see photo). I finally gave up and now make two large cups of coffee at home every morning, and place the second cup in the fridge in anticipation of my large iced coffee in the afternoon. I've since learned it's not "have it your way," so when I enjoy a coffee at a cafe, I have it European style.

So that's one thing I miss about living in California, large iced drinks on demand, but with that said, I have to add how much I love the simple satisfaction I get from a good tasting quality cup of (small) coffee here, not to mention the fair prices, and the easygoing lifestyle of stopping to have a coffee at any hour and all throughout the day with friends. It's a give and take, and I need to remind myself to appreciate what I have when I have it, and on that note, I'll end this post to go have an extra-mini coffee with milk, while quietly looking forward to the iced spiced pumpkin, eggnog, and peppermint lattes that await me this Christmas in California.

Can you guess which one was mine? Just like Starbucks.

Note: To be fair, pictured here are what they call "cortados" (1/2 coffee and 1/2 milk) - it's in what looks like a shot glass, right?! Well the "cortado largo" (same, but larger) looks like it's in a "tall" shot glass. I've also seen regular cups of coffee that are larger but contain less coffee and more milk.

30 Anuses

As appalling as it may be to literary professionals and grammar nazis, it's not altogether surprising that the English written language is becoming increasingly less recognizable in casual forums on the internet, or in text conversations over phones. With chatting, texting, Facebook and Twitter updates, and our dwindling attention spans and patience, we've manged to turn the internet and our mobile phones into figurative battlefields for the assault on the formal written language. We've hacked up words to save a few milliseconds typing one or two less letters (rite?), or for others, just to sound kinda "cool," like dis. Punctuation has suffered as "..." has replaced the period and the comma, hardly leaving the need for a capitalized letter.

Since moving to Spain, I've realized it's not just English, as the written Spanish language is being equally mangled all over the Internet. I often find words that I don't understand and can't translate because it's a poorly written version of the actual word. Rodri and I both had to be extra careful in the beginning of our long-distance relationship, when our communication still solely consisted of emails and chatting, because we were both writing in our respective languages and having to translate the response before replying, so as you can see, something so common as typing just "q" for the word "que" in Spanish would confuse me during that stage because the translation would be choppy and have random "q's" all throughout. It wasn't a huge adjustment for me, as I tend to stray away from abbreviations, even opting against Happy Bday or Merry Xmas which are commonly used and accepted abbreviations. I do take my own fair share of shortcuts that I deem to be more useful than offensive, including sometimes just typing the "q" for "que" in Spanish as it's nearly every other word, and often leaving out the accents, mainly for two reasons, I don't always know where they go, and my American programmed devices don't include them. It's not uncommon to see native Spanish speakers leaving off some accents in their informal writing, but there are certain accents that give a word a whole new meaning if overlooked, and others that just make you sound really silly if you try saying the word without the accent. Of course, I  learned the importance of accents the hard way, most notably how the word año (year) changes to anus (ano) if you leave off the accent.

I'm not sure how many times I must have asked someone "how many anuses do you have?" when trying to ask how old they are. I was shocked to realize the meaning of a sentence could change so drastically if it faults a little squiggly line. It's because in Spanish to ask how old someone is, the literal translation is "how many years do you have?" (cuantos años tienes?) and if you take out the accent in the word year, you get the word anus, wonderful (I do realize I left off the accent over the "a" in "cuantos" and my question lacks that upside down question mark before the sentence, but those are some of the shortcuts I choose to take since I don't have a Spanish keyboard). 

I remember when I moved here it was still hard to understand the spoken language since everyone talked so fast, differently, and with varying accents depending on what part of Spain they're from. I became familiar with some of the common questions I'd be asked, like "de donde eres?" (where are you from?) and I'd get a little thrill each time from holding one of my first "mini conversations." Sometimes people would snicker and say how American my accent is, well duh, I'm American, but I'll never forget the time someone I had just met asked me how old I was, and out of excitement for understanding the question and in anticipation to respond, I smiled big, and proudly blurted out nothing other than "I HAVE 30 ANUSES!" Sometimes people correct my Spanish or my pronunciation (always appreciated) but I revert back to my erroneous usage out of habit, but that time, I never forgot or made that mistake again.


Yesterday, more than a year after living here, I unintentionally found the accent "ñ" on my itouch. Apparently all this time, all I had to do was hover my finder over the "n" for it to appear. Now if I could just find the shortcuts to the accents on my other non-Apple devices. Well at least I found it in time to not have to type "Happy New Anus" come the new year! 

Magical new beginings

As some of you may already know, in May of 2010 I met my Spanish (Canario) boyfriend at Machu Picchu, the wondrous Inca ruins situated near the mountainous Andean region of Peru. I can think of no better or more magical way to find love than here at this historical sanctuary of the Inca Empire "floating amongst the clouds." It must have been magic as two complete strangers were brought together from different continents, speaking different languages, not understanding one another or the force that was drawing them together.

Now, more than two years later, I've been living with him in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), Spain for just over a year. While adjusting to the new country, culture, language, and lifestyle, not surprisingly, I've had interesting and notable experiences I wish I would have jotted down for myself, and to share with friends and family back home in California. The memories have stayed with me, and I'm making more every day, so it's never too late to start, so as I begin, note that my blog entries will consist of anecdotes from my personal experiences, perceptions, and general thoughts as a California girl completely immersed in the Spanish, well "Canario" lifestyle.

After a year living in Spain, I can proudly say my grasp of the Spanish language has much improved since my move to the island. I've came a long way from the initial challenge of not confusing certain words, as that could wind up being dangerously embarrassing, for example,

Cojines = Pillows
Cajones = Drawers
and
Cojones = balls, of the testicle kind

or

Pollo = Chicken
vs
Polla = One of the many slang terms for penis

Those particular examples have been engrained into my memory for life from the humiliation I'd suffered on the numerous occasions I ordered a "salad with crispy penis," or asked Rodrigo if the "penis in the fridge is still good to eat" or told him that I "prefer my testicles fuller for more neck support" or asked the Ikea attendant if he had the same "dresser" with four testicles instead of two, to name just a few. I put dresser in quotations as I really said "cojonera" (of testicles) and not "cajonera" which would have been dresser. As you can imagine, the list is endless. Grasping Spanish has been a challenging and often times fun, or better put, funny learning experience. I feel immense personal growth and pride being able to hold conversations in a second language, and I have to admit, learning a foreign language while in a foreign country, has given me a satisfaction more rewarding than anything I learned while studying in college, and it's helped to appease the regret I had for not studying abroad. I hope to one day be able to say I'm fluent in Spanish, but until then, I'll use this blog as an outlet for my inevitable entertaining mistakes.

It's only fitting to include in my very first blog entry the very first picture taken with the culprit of all these life changes. Here we are, Rodri and I, just a few hours after we met on the "fate train" (ya, I'm cheesy, but hey we met on a train) in Aguas Calientes, Peru.

May 29, 2010

The breathtaking Machu Picchu