Learning Spanish One Encounter at a Time...

We were warned before leaving home that unlike the rest of the European Union, english is not spoken in Spain. That should have provided some motivation to start reading the stack of spanish books we have but no, we figured we would get by with what we already knew, which is very little. We are now immersed in spanish language, food and culture. We both dress like Europeans (no shorts, fanny packs, sneakers or t-shirts) and are pretty much taken for locals, that is until we open our mouths.

One Mystery Solved
When we were going through the apartment with the landlady on the first day it was a little confusing what we were supposed to do with our trash. She explained it to us separately and I understood we were to put everything in a plastic bag, tie the bag closed and take it to one of the receptacles found every few blocks. Karen understood her to say tie up the bag and put it in the hallway each day before noon.
We arrived on a Friday and Karen put the bag out in the hall the next day just before noon. When we got back after dark it was still there. Uh oh, maybe she said only Monday through Friday. Monday morning I walked with Karen to the archives where she is working. There were no bags in the hall so when I got back to the apartment I took three tied bags to the trash receptacle two blocks away.
One is supposed to open the door, put in a bag, turn a crank on the right side to allow the bag to drop to somewhere below ground. It was locked. We assume there is a timer someplace that locks and unlocks the receptacles but if you are not a local you don't get to know the times. There were a few bags on the sidewalk leaning against the thing so I put ours there.
This morning about 9 AM I was headed out to do it again but just in case, before I left I figured out how to ask “what are the hours for trash”? When I reached the lobby the woman who cleans the common areas in the building saw me and we exchanged pleasantries. I decided to ask her “¿Cuando son las horas de basura?”.
She began a long explanation, most of which I did not understand but I knew she understood me because as she was explaining she kept pointing to the bag I was holding and gesturing. After a few laughs we decided that I understood that we were supposed to put it outside our door the night before and she will pick it up. As I demonstrated that I understood this she exclaimed “Bueno! Bueno! Vale! Vale!
I believe she was happy that I understood because she took my bag and put it into a larger bag in the hall.

Plunging In...
When I spend time in a new place I tend to explore the area using ever increasing concentric circles. Today I expanded my area of knowledge quite a bit. As I walked around the city this morning for over two hours, I could tell when I got closer to tourist areas because I heard the people walking about speaking mostly english and some german. As I moved away into areas frequented almost exclusively by locals I heard only the distinctive type of spanish spoken by Sevillanos. The locals, unlike other Europeans, speak very little english, limited mostly to servers in the restaurants frequented by tourists and they know only some of the menu items.

English is easy to pick out of the din walking past the plethora of sidewalk cafes. After hearing so many people making no attempt at all to use the local language and watching the body language of the locals encountering them, I decided to lean forward and make more effort to brush off the two years I studied spanish in college in 1961-63. I went to a sidewalk cafe very near the archives which is in a high tourist traffic area and sat at a table by myself. The couple sitting on one side of me was British with Americans on the other side and across. The waiter approached and said something in english, which I ignored. I ordered my meal, drink, dessert and asked for the bill in Spanish. I know it wasn't all correct but it was understood and I felt good about myself.

Within the next seven and a half weeks in Spain perhaps I can do the same thing in a remote cafe where there is no safety net because the waiter knows absolutely no english. Vale!