Gifts from one cousin to another

It wasn’t just my sister who brought gifts for Sweet Pea, also O’s sister and niece brought presents and here are some of them:

5-year old M had chosen both the ducks (from the shop Casa) and the elephant (H&M) for her new cousin. I asked her if the elephant had a name and she told me that her name is Elly, like the elephant in Pocoyo. The ducks actually came in a set of 5 but M wanted to keep the “rosa fuchsia” one as that was her favourite 😉

The crocheted (?) teddy bear is actually a Christmas present for myself from my mother that I got a few years ago – it was sold by the Children’s Cancer fund in Sweden and I thought that it was so cute. I have more crocheted toys from Anne-Claire Petit, a Dutch designer that I really like, and Sweet Pea will get them as well of course.

For those of you who wonder who / what Pocoyo is, check out this short film:

Pocoyo exists in different languages but we know him of course only in Spanish… Another big favourite of M’s is Caillou, which she watched every evening on Youtube. During the day she would watch cartoons in French or Dutch on the various children’s tv-channels we have. There was one cartoon that she recognised from Spain, about a handy man and his tools that can talk, can’t remember his name Handy Manny (thanks Mary T!), and he was partly speaking in Spanish even though the cartoon was in French. I guess like Dora, the Explorer, but a version for boys!?

Update: I was going to show some cute baby clothes that Sweet Pea also got from his Spanish tía (aunt) and prima (cousin) but I have problems with uploading the photos to the computer. Or rather, they get uploaded, I can look at them but then they all of a sudden disappear from the folder. When I then try to upload them again, the computer says that they already exist but they are not visible!!? Help!!

Los patos y la tripa

I will try to update properly as soon as possible but sitting up is becoming more and more uncomfortable as the baby is pushing on my ribs. Reading book No 23 now, and all our family members have gone back to Sweden and Spain.

It’s been so nice with some company and help with the housekeeping 😉  and everything went well with the two families meeting and even communicating a little bit. My sister has written about her Brussels visit on her blog (in Swedish, but you can always try to google translate if you don’t understand) and how she will never forget the Spanish word for duck thanks to O’s 5-year old niece M…

Los patos y la tripa (the ducks and the belly) – my sister and O’s niece playing around…

Rebeca & Camilla

Rebeca and Camilla – two girls’ names, you’d think… Nope, rebeca means cardigan in Spanish and camilla is a stretcher / gurney (bår).

Do you know that you can subscribe to Spanish word of the day? Actually, English word of the day for that matter too. It’s great, you get an email every day with a new Spanish / English word with meanings, examples etc. And today, rebeca is the word! Apparently it comes from Daphne Du Maurier’s famous book, Rebecca, whose young heroine was particularly fond of wearing a cardigan.

Camilla* was also a new word for me, but I learnt it yesterday from having Spanish subtitles on Grey’s Anatomy! We usually watch dvds with the English subtitles, call us lazy if you want. Anyway, as O was complaining that they were using too much medical lingo, I changed to Spanish subtitles. Of course it didn’t make any difference as the Spanish use the same medical terms… in Latin  😉

When looking up the word camilla in my favourite on-line dictionary, wordreference.com, I learnt that it can also refer to a Spanish round table with space for a heater underneath. And what do you know, I actually have a photo of one!

Not the safest way of heating; you would fill the plate underneath the table with burning coals and then cover the whole thing with a table cloth. O has told me that lots of accidents happened in the old days as the table cloth or people’s trousers / skirts would catch fire…

Which other names are used as nouns?

I can only think of Ulrik, which was used as slang for vomit when I was in high school (both noun and verb)! Maybe that was just something local for Skåne though!? It used to be a disclaimer on the posters for the high school parties that took place in clubs in small villages in the countryside and for which transport had to be organised for the students. “Ulrik in the bus, 500 SEK”** – what you would have to pay for the cleaning up if you fell sick in the bus.

And in Danish, the name Alfons is slang for a pimp! Somehow I prefer Rebeca and Camilla, than Ulrik and Alfons…

*) The girl’s name is written with one l in Spanish – Camila!
**) At the start of high school, my friends and I didn’t understand why poor Ulrik would have to pay more than everybody else! 😉

After fauna comes flora…

Roble amarillo at the end of March

Or not really, at least in Swedish I think we say “flora & fauna”, not the other way around but since my last blog post was dedicated to animals and insects I thought I would make this the flora post:

Similar tree in April – less leaves…

Photo taken in May – almost no leaves left

Help me, how do you search for names of trees and flowers on the internet? I never seem to make succesful searches for flora, nor fauna actually. However, thanks to Britta, I now know that the tree I showed last week is called roble amarillo / plateado in Puerto Rico. The name could be translated as yellow / silver oak. But is that really how the tree is called in English? It definitely doesn’t look like the oaks I am used to in Europe… Apparently the tree also exists in pink – both in Puerto Rico and in Egypt according to Marianne.

Flowers of the roble amarillo…

A walk in a Spanish village

Has anyone seen Pedro Almodóvar’s film “Volver”? I always think of it when I walk alone in the narrow streets of O’s village in Spain… It is usually very windy and it is quite deserted – just an occasional old señora or señor who sometimes say hello to me, or rather they say “Hasta luego” which for me is a strange greeting (See you soon).

The village is situated in the region of Aragón, on 599 m above sea level and has almost 3,400 inhabitants. The village is surrounded by mountains, the so-called Sistema Ibérico with peaks such as the Moncayo (2,313 m). A river runs through the village and there is an old Roman bridge crossing it.

The view from the closest mountain on New Year’s Eve. I had a need for some peace and quiet and O took me to this view point – the air was so fresh and smelled of thyme!

My “sobrina” (niece[-in-law]), 3½-year-old M and I went for a walk in the village one day just after Christmas and we had lots of fun. We crossed the bridge, walked along the river…

and used the swings at the playground.

A fruit and vegetable plantation close to the river

We discussed how many and which colours the rings had on the “pabellón” (sports centre)… At every street corner we tried to remember to look to the right and left before crossing, but I don’t think that “Barnens Trafikklubb” has ever existed in Spain  😀

M thought that we should also have an “angelito” on the house, or why not a big inflatable Papá Noel? The “angelito” (small angel) is actually baby Jesus and is the banner of one of the religious associations in the village – I have to ask O to explain it better to me…

However, it was quite cold in the wind so we were very pleased when el tío (uncle) O proposed a fika afterwards in the local pastelería (café).

Trying on la tía’s cap – practical when it is windy outside

The same day we went out for a second walk when the Swedish tía P didn’t want little M to ride in the car, without a car seat, even if it was only to the next village…

The village library that used to be the teachers’ accommodation, and then post office… It has just been renovated – at least the interior  😉

It was already dark but I wanted to explore more of the village so we walked aimlessly towards the church through the winding streets and alleys, past one of the four (?) supermarkets, a greengrocer’s, a bread shop (that only sells bread, which is baked in another village – there are of course also several real bakeries in the village), one of the three fish shops, a butcher’s, some derelict houses, a few collapsed buildings and a couple of bars that looked abandoned… It is incredible how many shops and businesses there are in a village the size of my birth village Veberöd in Skåne!

One of the bars that is still actually open…

If you want to practise a foreign language, my tip is to spend time with an inquisitive 3-year-old! Many questions about porqué (why) and what is that?

The closer to the church we got, the more deserted the village seemed and the houses older and in a worse state. The wind increased, a window shutter was squeaking and my young companion started talking about las brujas (witches)… Just when we reached the church, the bells started ringing and the church door slowly swung open but we didn’t see anybody. Then an old woman in black appeared and mumbled something I didn’t catch. A little jumpy we turned down a dark narrow alley and started counting together the steps leading down to the centre of the village again.

Hm, did I let a 3-year-old play with my imagination or have I watched too many spooky Spanish films (thanks Saltis for The Orphanage, ha ha)?

It is not always obvious whether the house is still in use…

And speaking of our stay in O’s village, I have completely forgotten to tell you that I was interviewed on the radio in Spain! Well, not the Spanish radio, but Radio Sol y Mar, which is a Swedish radio station in Málaga. My blog friend Anna, who used to have a great blog about the life in Spain as a Swedish expat, interviewed me by phone just after Christmas and we talked about my impressions of celebrating the holidays in Spain for the first time. Unfortunately the programme is not available on-line anymore.

¿Estamos ready? Spanglish in Puerto Rico

Learning Spanish in Puerto Rico can be a very interesting experience. First of all because a lot of people insist on speaking English to foreigners – regardless of whether the foreigners are English-speaking or not (happened to my blond but very Spanish brother-in-law C who doesn’t speak English*) and regardless of their own level of English (the Puerto Rican accent in English is not always easy to understand) and secondly because the Puerto Rican Spanish is full of Anglicisms, or maybe rather Americanisms!

Spot the Spanglish at the car wash!

When it comes to the first issue, I just consequently say ¿Perdón? when somebody talks to me in English, and if they insist on English, I show my stubbornness by replying in Spanish… It happened to me twice on Monday; first a taxi driver came up to me on the way to Starbucks and said something which I didn’t actually hear, and he didn’t change language after my ¿Perdón? but continued by asking “Why not take a taxi instead of walking” – I replied “Voy solamente a Starbucks, no está lejos…” (I am only going to Starbucks, it is not far). When I arrived to the café, the girl behind the counter spoke to me in English but did actually change to Spanish when I said ¿Perdón? Sometimes I feel like Don Quijote fighting against wind mills – why do I even bother? Well, maybe because I insist on practising my Spanish…

Anyway, I am used to this kind of bilingual conversations from Belgium where every now and then people would detect my foreign accent in French and try to speak to me in English! However, I was also aware of the fact that there are Belgians who prefer speaking English (most Flemish-speaking Belgians for example) and the same is the case in Puerto Rico. I just figured out a few weeks ago that one of the shop assistants in a local shop is probably an English-speaking American woman so maybe I should just stop insisting on speaking Spanish to her.

More Spanglish…

I get an enormous sense of well-being and am happy for the rest of the day** when people speak to me in Spanish and don’t switch languages 🙂 It happens more and more, which my Spanish teacher told me is a good indication that my Spanish has improved! Nevertheless, speaking Spanish in Spain is much more rewarding and less stressful, since the Spaniards, at least in Zaragoza, don’t have the same reflex to speak English to foreigners. Of course, this is probably because there are a lot fewer tourists in Aragón than in my area of San Juan…

The Spanglish is another matter: I find the Puerto Rican habit of using English words in Spanish, or making English words into Spanish  fascinating and creative, while O thinks it is shocking the way the Puerto Ricans mistreat his and their mother tongue! Of course I can understand that it is quite tragic how perfectly adequate Spanish words are being replaced by Spanglish ones, but I also believe that it is the way languages have evolved since the beginning of times…

• fresa is sometimes called strawberi, and arándano rojo agrio is simply cranberi (maybe not surprising since cranberry is not a locally grown berry in Spain nor in Puerto Rico)
• picotear (to snack) is replaced by snackear – oh yes, I saw it on a billboard this weekend, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to take a photo! 
• Sorry is used almost as much as perdón 
• Hangear (to hang out) and chatear (to chat) are common verbs 
• El beauty (as in beauty parlour) and el blower (which I already mentioned yesterday is called le brushing in French, i.e blow-drying your hair and getting it styled at the hairdresser’s) are popular words in Puerto Rico
• Suéter is a wonderfully phonetic word for “sweater” in Puerto Rico, just like the Spanish spell whisky güisqui and pronunce their word for sweater [xer’sei] (actually jersey)
• ¿Estamos ready? was heard during the Beach cleaning event a few weeks ago! (Are we ready?)

When I once asked among a group of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans how to say “coaster”, it caused a big discussion… The Puerto Ricans looked at each other and said “¿coaster?”. We had to call O from the kitchen (where he was cooking, while I was entertaining the guests) to get the “proper” Spanish word – “portavaso” but then the Mexicans said “posavaso“! Does the coaster carry / bear the glass or is the glass put on the coaster? According to Wordreference the Mexicans were right, so maybe we can’t trust O’s expertise in Spanish?

And before we judge the Puerto Ricans, or Spaniards for that matter (I mean [xer’sei]??), remember that Swedes have made French words into Swedish ones with a more local spelling: bureau is “byrå”, portefeuille is “portfölj” and fauteuil is “fåtölj”, and the French say le week-end  and spell the word with a hyphen that doesn’t exist in English. When I visited Bosnia in 2001, I saw a menu with cizburger and cikenburger. The list goes on and on…

Spanglish is one thing but there is no excuse for misspelt signs in Spanish, such as this one that we saw in more than one Marshalls shop – kitchen is cocina in Spanish! That the sign continues in English is another matter…

*) The situation was really absurd as he then thought that the Puerto Rican talking to him in English didn’t speak Spanish, so he made an attempt to communicate in broken English…
**) Anyone out there recognising that quote??

Nationality? Citizenship? Ethnic group?

Yesterday, just before boarding the plane to Newark, there was an improvised passport control which was quite surprising since you are not passing any borders between Puerto Rico and the United States. The control actually confused a few Puerto Rican passengers who didn’t know how to answer when asked by the immigration officers:

– ¿Ciudadanía? (citizenship)

After a few seconds of confusion, they answered hesitantly ¿Americana? and then corrected themselves and said ¡Estadounidense!”

Flags at the San Cristobal Fortress in San Juan – a Spanish Naval flag (the so-called Burgundy Cross), the Puerto Rican flag and the flag of the United States

I found the whole exchange very interesting for two reasons:

1) Quite a few Puerto Ricans see themselves as puertorriqueño even though officially there is no such citizenship*. Puerto Ricans are American citizens and carry American passports (for good or for bad, I don’t want to get into a political discussion here)… which leads to the second reason:

2) In Spanish you make a distinction between “americano / a” and “estadounidense”, which is actually the most correct way to express yourself since everybody who lives in America – North, South and Central – is American! Only citizens of the United States of America are “estadounidenses”.

Is there any other language that makes this distinction or could it be that because Spanish is spoken in South America, there’s been a need to create a distinction between Americans from the USA and the rest of the two continents?

The American / United States flag

I assume that most of us wouldn’t have any trouble with knowing what our nationality is, nor our citizenship, which usually is the same. However, some people have dual citizenships (two passports, sometimes even more!). Do they make the distinction between nationality and citizenship? Instinctively I would say that even if I became for example a Spanish or American citizen, I would still feel that my nationality is Swedish.

The definitions of the two terms, according to Dictionary.com, are as follows:

Citizenship – the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.

Nationality – the status of belonging to a particular nation, whether by birth or naturalization: the nationality of an immigrant.

No mention of emotions or feeling a nationality of course, but would you agree with me that nationality is more emotional than citizenship? And did you know that since the introduction of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, there is an European citizenship? You might not feel European (I do, though) but if you are a citizen of a member state of the European Union, you are automatically an European citizen as well. So, in a way you could say that all Europeans have dual citizenship!

Street sign in New Jersey – apparently Spanish-speaking persons don’t drive cars, only ride bikes or skateboards!? (since the “No parking when road is snow covered” isn’t translated)

Another confusion arose the other day when O was filling out a form for a work project and the box “Ethnic / racial group” had to be checked. He asked me, “Am I “hispanic / latino” or “white / caucasian” as a Spaniard? Well, I understand that for him the instinct would be to check “Hispanic” but I think that he is expected to refer to himself as “white”. Hispanic or latino for O refers to the fact that he is a Spaniard (from the Iberian (Hispania) peninsula) speaking a Latin language. I googled it and according to the Wikipedia entry (link above), various government agencies in the United States define “hispanic” differently – sometimes including people from Spain and Portugal, sometimes not.

Filling out a form… A very American form for an European

For most Europeans it is quite strange to have to define your ethnic / racial group. I think that I have only done it once, except for filling out all those forms for the US Immigration, and that was when applying for a job in Great Britain. I don’t know if Europe is heading towards the American and British way of categorising people, but I am not sure that I like putting ethnic / racial labels on people. Nevertheless, I am aware that people are labelled, regardless of whether or not they have checked a box – a name is deemed “foreign” and the job application is put in a certain pile, a person sees a head scarf or turban and associates it with something unwanted… And I guess the checking of a box is supposed to help avoid discrimination, but it all seems very arbitrary.

*) However Puerto Rican athletes can compete under the Puerto Rican flag and today for the first time ever, did a Puerto Rican win a medal in a World Championships in Athletics – Javier Culson won silver in 400 metres hurdles! Felicidades! (and thanks to my dad for telling me the news!)

Friday theme / Show & tell: Speaking of languages…

Today’s theme has been chosen by Musikanta in Sweden and is quite fittingly: “Speaking of languages…”! Maybe you are already bored of my language posts but it is a subject that affects my everyday life as an expat and that is probably why I keep returning to this issue…

Musikanta actually asked me a few weeks ago how I ended up in Brussels and then Puerto Rico with a Spanish husband, and I have been asking myself a few times how it all started…

Did it start when I moved with my parents and siblings to England in 1988, and I had to learn the language in order to keep up in the English school? Or did it start even earlier?

Part of the lawn that was full of four-leaf clovers when I was a child… even if my brother and I never found any!

My parents have always travelled with us three children – and my childhood is filled with travel stories; my first trip “abroad” was by ferry to Helsingör (Elsinore) in Denmark (my travel outfit was a cute little red dress and a white scarf around my hair – very chic!) just before my 1st birthday; the first time I drank from a straw was in a autobahn restaurant somewhere in Germany and my parents had some trouble teaching me how to “suck up” my drink; the Swiss chef who made porridge especially for me in the hotel by Lake Geneva but I just cried because his big red nose really scared me; my father’s uncle’s Swiss wife who always found four-leaf clovers for me and my brother in their wonderful garden; the bird shit I sat in just in front of Notre-Dame in Paris in 1982; the toilet attendant I didn’t understand at Windsor Castle so I went into the gents’ where my father and brother were – many of these memories include the notion of not understanding the language spoken to me or around me.

The village in the south of France – there is a similar photo of me and my brother standing outside the café… but I took this picture when I revisited the village in 2005

All the while we were travelling around Europe by car, my mother would try to entertain us by inventing games (spot different cars or flags) or to sing songs. One of my strongest memories is learning the song Brother John in different languages:

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping
Brother John, brother John?
Morning bells are ringing! Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, dong, ding. Ding, dong, ding

Bruder Jakob, Bruder Jakob,
Schläfst du noch? Schläfst du noch?
Hörst du nicht die Glocken, Hörst du nicht die Glocken?
Ding, dang, dong, Ding, dang, dong

Broder Jakob, Broder Jakob,
Sover du? Sover du?
Hör du inte klockan? Hör du inte klockan?
Ding, ding, dong, Ding, ding, dong

(this song also reminds me of a great Midsummer’s eve party in Brussels when I had printed out the song in several European languages – it was a great “snaps song” for the very international mix of guests!)

Maybe that’s how my fascination for languages was triggered?

Or maybe it was the visit of the three sisters of my mother’s French pen pal Anne-Marie, all of them with double-names (Marie-Hélène is the only one I remember) and their black friend Eddie in 1981? It was probably one of the first times that my brother and I met a black person and we thought that Eddie was so cool! The four French visitors arrived one morning in an old Citroën, they had actually slept in the car just outside Dalby (10 km away) as they were too embarrassed to arrive earlier than announced. It was a great few days – Eddie played my father’s guitar, the girls cooked huge portions of pasta and tomato sauce, smoked cigarettes and drank wine with my parents… The French sisters taught my brother and I to count in French, and we sat up late at night on the patio listening to the adults’ conversation in broken English and French. I observed with fascination these French twentysomethings who were so different from my parents and the other adults I knew in our middle class neighbourhood. My brother was probably more interested in the Citroën, as it behaved strangely by rising up when the engine was turned on…

The bakery where my brother and I practised one of our first sentences in French!

A few years later we spent a few summers in the south of France and every morning my brother and I used to walk on our own to the boulangerie (bakery) in the small village to buy “une baguette et un bâtard, s’il vous plaît“… We were so proud that we were allowed to go to the bakery without our parents and also that we could buy bread in French!

So, speaking of languages, these are probably some of the reasons why I am so interested in learning new languages – to be able to communicate with people! I have always loved travelling and getting to know new cultures but in order to do that, I understood from a very early age that you need to speak different languages…

I remember how my parents discussed what kind of “infusion” (third from the bottom in the left-hand column) it was that you could order in the village bar in the south of France – nowadays I know that it means herbal tea!

The other Friday bloggers can be found below:
Anki, Anna, Annika, Christel, Curieux, Desiree, Emma, Erica, IamAnnika, IngaBritt, Jemaya, Lena W, Leopardia, Mais-oui, Marie, Mia D, Millan, Moster Mjölgumpa, Musikanta, Nilla, Norrsken & Stjärnfall, Petra H, Saltis, Sara, Simone, Sparkling, Strandmamman, Taina, Under Ytan, Victoria V and Västmanländskan.

Bilingual and bi-cultural – is that a problem? Part II: Learning a new language

I am really pleased that so many of you thought that my post about bilingualism and bi-culturalism was so interesting! It was fascinating to read everybody’s comments about your own experiences, thoughts and ideas. Thanks!

As you all know I am taking our time in Puerto Rico as an opportunity to learn Spanish – because it is O’s language, but also because it is a world language and it is the language of Puerto Rico. I never really had any interest in learning Spanish before meeting O – my inclination has always been towards Italian, which I studied for 3 years in high school + I lived one year in Italy. It is quite ironic really that one of my best friends, L chose Spanish over French, and I Italian over Spanish in school and now we are trying to learn “each other’s language” because of our French and Spanish lovers. I complain about forgetting my Italian and L complains about not being able to speak Spanish anymore even though she does (did?) speak Spanish fluently after 1 +1 year in Spain.

Anyway, learning your partner’s language is not always very easy. As previously mentioned, I feel that it is difficult to change language in a relationship, regardless whether it is a romantic relationship or “just” a friendship. It also demands quite a lot of patience of both persons in the relationship – the one learning the language, and the one whose mother tongue is being learnt. It is important that the one who already speaks the language doesn’t make fun of the way the other person speaks – or make comments like “Oh, you have such a cute accent” (that’s the worst comment ever, no-one will appreciate such a comment*!!). Respect the student’s efforts and encourage instead of mocking!

I was complaining to my Spanish teacher the other day that O got annoyed with me when I asked him how to say “isolation” in Spanish. My teacher laughed and asked if there was shouting involved. O and I hardly ever (and that is almost never!!) argue and it wasn’t really a full blown argument but we both got annoyed – when O kept telling me “aislado” and I told him that that’s “isolated”! I wanted isolation, not isolated, not isolate but isolation**!! In the end I said that it was lucky that he is not my Spanish teacher, grrr…

It is incredible how much patience is involved in teaching a language and you probably need to have that professional distance between the teacher and the student in order to not get completely frustrated! In the first blog post about my Spanish studies last year, I mentioned that I kept putting an -i where there was no i in the verb despertarse (to wake up) and I said it with double pronouns (después de me despiertarme) I am still amazed at the patience the teacher showed when trying to correct me! But then again, he was paid to be patient…

Spanish tapas menu

However, as I already stated in the previous post, I don’t really find it a problem learning O’s language and it is fun most of the time! We are slowly introducing more and more Spanish in our relationship – sometimes at home, sometimes when we are out and about (when I don’t want the locals to assume that we are Americans because we speak English!!) but mostly when we are socialising with Puerto Ricans and other Spanish-speaking people. Last weekend we had brunch in Swedish-French-Spanish-English, but actually mostly in Spanish! And last Friday we spoke Spanish and French over a lasagne dinner with two French girls. It definitely makes conversation more interesting when mixing languages!!

Look out for Part III on the subject of bilingualism and biculturalism…

*) I don’t know how many French people have told me that I have a sweet accent when I speak French – they don’t seem to realise that it is a very patronising comment. I would never say to them that they have a cute accent in English for example! There is nothing wrong with saying “Oh, you have an interesting accent” or something alike, but pointing out that it is “cute” implies that you don’t really take the person seriously… Maybe an overreaction but that’s how I feel! 😉
**) Isolation = aislamiento in Spanish, I had to look it up in a dictionary eventually…

Integration indicators

My resolution to be a bit more productive this week with the blog wasn’t really successful… I will try again next week!

When I move to a new place, regardless if it is a new city or a new country, I have two indicators to gauge / measure my integration; when I start randomly meeting people in the street that I know (an earlier indicator might be that I recognise people in the street but I don’t actually know them) and when I can give directions to people who are lost. The second indicator is of course not just depending on my knowledge of my surroundings but also of the local language.

The first person I started to recognise in San Juan was an old woman who would always walk by my bus stop on her way home from the supermarket. She also recognised me and we used to say “buenos días” to each other. I don’t take the bus anylonger since I finished my Spanish lessons at the language school in October, and I kind of miss the old lady.

However, every time I walk to Starbucks or l’Alliance Francaise I walk by an old man sitting by a shopping trolley in the same spot every day. I think he is homeless but I am not sure. He usually sells various trinkets from his trolley and most people seem to know him – they say hello to him and exchange a few words while walking by. I do the same nowadays, and I get worried if I don’t see him in his usual spot.

This week I was sitting in Starbucks with my Spanish teacher talking about my weekend and telling him that we had made new friends, a French-Swede A and his Puerto Rican wife, when A appears just in front of me saying “Hej” – needless to say I was a little shocked and asked if he had heard that I was talking about him!? I probably seemed really confused – and I was, not knowing if I should speak Swedish, Spanish, French or English when introducing him to my teacher!

I asked of course my Spanish teacher afterwards how you say “Speak of the devil” in Spanish and it is “Hablando del rey de Roma” (Speaking about the Roman king) . In Swedish we say “When you talk about the trolls…[they are standing in the hall]” Check out this Wikipedia link for similar expressions in other languages!

One of the local Starbucks

This morning I had another random encounter when walking to Starbucks and I met my neighbour S. Nothing strange really but it is actually the first time (in 1½ years) that I meet her in the street. During my lesson in the coffee place, my teacher L and I talked briefly to a Spanish girl who was sitting with her laptop at one of the tables. She told us that she was just visiting Puerto Rico and that she lives in Florida. She and I exchanged a few impressions of Puerto Rico & the US compared to Europe before leaving. 

Imagine my surprise when I met her in the service elevator in my apartment building 20 minutes ago!! I was just going down to throw away the garbage bag and she appeared with her boyfriend carrying some boxes. She said “Hola, qué tal?” and I answered her but I didn’t really figure out who she was until they had stepped out of the elevator!

So, do all these encounters mean that I am fully integrated in San Juan? Well, probably not but I am working on it – and I have been able to give a few directions but sometimes I still have to answer “lo siento pero no tengo idea” (I am sorry but I have no idea [where that is]).

And of course there are a lot more factors that play in for a full integration, the ones I have mentioned are just the first steps… Integration is probably not even the correct word anyway, maybe “settling in” is a better expression!