In high school Spanish, we learned “aretes” as the word for earrings, so when I asked for them at a museum gift shop, the employee grabbed them for me. But she also taught me that Spain says “pendientes” for earrings and “aretes” is mostly heard in South America. When my friends and I were leaving…
Tag: Sydney Forster
Always Walking in Alcalá
We discovered that Alcalá has public pools on our walk home from the train station. After our first weekend in Madrid, my roommates and I took the train back then walked to our host house. It was the first time we had walked in that area of the city and we discovered many new details…
Living Slowly in Spain
There is no such thing as being late for tapas. After class one night, a group of friends from my program planned on getting tapas to explore more of center city Alcalá. My roommates and I enjoyed our siestas and started getting ready, but our timing wasn’t quite right and I realized we would not…
I’ve studied Spanish, now I’m studying Spain!
When I started taking Spanish classes in sixth grade, I focused intently on vocabulary. I thought memorizing words and structures was the only strategy for language development. Now, ten years later–although I can still tell you the Spanish word for every piece of school supplies that I’ve ever used–my approach to learning language has evolved…