During my South America trip in 2012, I made half-hearted attempts at speaking Spanish, and on the whole I failed. Miserably. I did a lot more homework in advance of my Spain trip in 2017, which meant that things improved a bit. Ever since then I've been studying daily, with the help of numerous tutors, and though I'll never be properly bilingual - I started far too late in life - I'm definitely at the point where I can now say, out loud and in capital letters, that I Speak Spanish.
And this trip should be an ideal opportunity to build on that. I'm confident that I can make myself understood in Spain, and that I can understand what's said to me in response. The only thing that can possibly go wrong is if we're all suddenly obliged to mumble at each other through facemasks.
Sigh.
It's especially annoying because when I'm unethically eavesdropping on the conversations of nearby strangers, I generally understand them pretty well. They have their masks down and they're speaking clearly, stretching out words for effect, accompanied by the obligatory wild Latin hand gestures. But most of my conversational interactions are with bored, masked, mumbling shop assistants trotting out a scripted line for the 100th time that day, and thus not bothering to enunciate that line properly. In fairness it's the same in England, where - from a foreigner's perspective - "Do you want fries with that?" could just as easily be "Have you got piles, you twat?"
Spain is currently a bit of a Covid hotspot, but I'm not about to run away, just as I didn't flee to Spain from England when things were hotting up back home. I'm staying in apartments rather than hotels. My social isolation here is pretty much total, and everyone I see is wearing masks, not just in shops and on public transport but also in the parks and on the streets. I'm not mixing with unmasked people in bars & restaurants - and that, incidentally, is why my Edd vs Food pics are going to be all about the home cooking until further notice. The positive side of this is that I'm saving tons of money and eating more healthily than ever. Go me.
Vitoria-Gasteiz is the capital of the Basque autonomous community, although obviously that community's biggest city is Bilbao, where I passed a happy few days in 2017. (Spain has 17 autonomous communities, but this isn't the place to bore you all with lectures about that. Instead, I'll spread those lectures out over the next few months.) It's a nice enough place. Nothing to write home about. Hence all the waffle above.
By the way, another consequence of Covid is that I'm limiting my exposure to trains & buses by spending more time in each city. This also means that I'm saving money thanks to AirBnB's generous discounts for full-week stays. So my blogs will be a bit less frequent than during previous trips. But don't worry, I'll be fine. Y'all take care now.
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| Helpful turf sign, just in case you forget where you are |
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| Catedral de María Inmaculada |
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| Another angle of the Catedral María Inmaculada. Note the stone alligator at the foot of the picture. |
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| Grass around the tram lines. Nice touch. |
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| Random place in the city centre. Note the wall art, and the the total absence of litter. |
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| Siesta time. As above re litter. |
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| Edd vs Food #84 Home-made pizza with chorizo, goat's cheese and red onion. OK, admittedly it's home-topped rather than home-made. The base was out of a packet. Years ago I tried making my own pizza bases and it ended badly. Former housemates still recall the 'Flourpocalypse'. |
