The Rain Train in Spain

Is awesome and spacious. It has way more leg room than any I've taken in France, and possibly three times as much as that available on any Ryanair flight. Plus, they show movies! At least the one I was on from Madrid to Cadiz did, although it was confusingly both dubbed and subtitled in Spanish, and what they were saying wasn't always the same as what was being displayed at the bottom of the screen. Plus it was written and directed by David Mamet (Redbelt, 2008), so I might have found it a bit hard to follow in English anyhow.

After a couple of days in Paris, speaking mostly English (hooray for American friends visiting!), I spent one night in Madrid, speaking mostly French. I managed to avoid talking to anyone as I navigated the metro to my hostel, and I totally caught someone trying to pick my pocket! Er, purse. That sucker was going for the outside pocket, where I only keep a notebook to write down travel information. I saw his fingers reaching in there out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned to look at him, he totally pulled his hand away and acted like nothing had happened. I wish I had known something clever to say to him in Spanish. As it was, I hardly spoke any Spanish at all that night. The first girl I met at my hostel was French and spoke Spanish way better than I did. We went out for a tortilla (a Spanish omelette) and I totally let her do the ordering while we chatted away en français.

My Spanish is in a pretty embarrassing state, considering I did study it for a couple of years earlier in life. Though to be fair, the Mexican Spanish I learned in school is pretty different from what they speak here, and I've been speaking French for the past seven months. So every time I try to reach back five to six years in my brain to find a Spanish verb conjugation or the correct direct object pronoun placement, I always come up with the French first.

But, hey, I'm in Càdiz (a.k.a. beachville) for the next four days, so I should just get over any embarrassment and enjoy it. And as long as I'm hanging out with my sis, she should be able to communicate on my behalf. And did I mention my mom is here? Yeah, it's a regular ladies only family reunion. My mom wisely brought along a friend to travel with, whose second purpose (I suspect) is to shame my the three of us out of bickering in front of a non-family member. So far I'd say the success rate is at about 60%. I don't have much shame.