Linguistic Hurricanes

So now I'm in Denmark again. On Monday it snowed in Madrid, and only half the students came to school. Well, probably less than half, and although they all live in the town where the school is, most did not come. Yet, somehow, I made it all the way from Madrid to school on time. So my classes consisted of me playing hangman, and sitting in the teachers room huddled around the radiator. It snowed 1 inch that day.

I arrived in Denmark yesterday afternoon, and it was snowing here too. On my flight all the announcements were made in this order: first Spanish, then English, then Danish-Swedish hybrid. It was very interesting. Then I took public transportation to Gentofte (where I'm staying with my host family), and the metro was stopped in one station for 45 minutes. I don't know why because the announcement was in Danish and I was listening to music (not that that made any difference). I finally arrived to the Refstrups' house, and it felt like I was home. It's so great to see them, and Johan hasn't left my side. I actually just kicked him out of my room because he was going through my suitcase. Some things never change.

What has changed, however, is my knowledge of Danish. Although it's coming back to me relatively quickly, I definitely don't know it like I used to. I can understand some of it, and if I think really hard, I can speak a little. Overall, it ends up coming out in Spanish. I literally feel as if my brain was hit by a linguistic hurricane. English I'm still pretty good at; Spanish is my go-to foreign language; Danish I understand when people speak it to me, but when I try to respond, it comes out in Spanish. It's going to be great going to France in 10-ish days, and trying to communicate in that one. God help me.

Countries visited/will visit between Dec 5 and Jan 5:

--Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland (for a couple hours), France

Languages spoken in that same time period (some more than others, obviously):

--Spanish, English, Danish, Swedish, French, Italian

Despite the linguistic hurricane, I gotta say, "Life is good."

PS I'm stealing this link from my friend's blog, but I just wanted to share it here.

Things I wish I knew when I was 22

"Wherever you go...

There's always someone jewish." That's how a song by Debbie Friedman goes, and I've found it to be oddly true.

This past weekend we had a puente (Spanish for "bridge" and "long weekend"), so my friend Molly and I decided to head off to Venice for 3 days. Well, first, on Saturday I took the LSAT, which was just loads of fun. We'll see how I did when I get my scores in January, but as a reward, I went to Venice the following morning. We slept in the airport to avoid taking a taxi, and there was a child there who insisted on screaming for almost 2 hours. So that was less than fun, but we arrived in the Milan airport in the morning. We then took a beautiful train ride through northern Italy to Venice. From my window I saw the alps and we passed through a bunch of vineyards and small towns. Then we finally arrived in Venice.

Venice is beautiful. We basically just walked around the city for 2 whole days. We went to a couple of museums, ate a ton of pizza and pasta, shopped for souvenirs, and got extremely lost. Since Venice is basically a bunch of islands very close together and there are no cars, the streets wind and it is almost impossible to find your way around. We saw almost the entire city by just walking, and although the weather was cold and rainy, I really enjoyed Venice.

Back to my original point. There are jewish people everywhere. In Venice, there is a part of the city called the "Ghetto Vecchio" which means the old ghetto. It is the Jewish part of the city with synagogues, a chabad, and many judaica shops. I wanted to buy a menorah, but I think the shop disappeared. It was extremely odd.

Then tonight in Madrid, I went to a menorah lighting near the royal palace. I didn't think there were jewish people here, but apparently there are. It was awesome. The mayor gave a speech, as did the head rabbi and a bunch of other important jews. I got a FREE t-shirt that says "Comunidad Judia de Madrid" on the back. It's like a team jersey.

Nothing else too exciting here. Just the usual. Speaking English to kids who draw pictures all class long. Anyway, that's all for now.