The Spanish preterite tense is not my friend. How can poder become puste, and venir vino? Vino, as in wine. Really.
When practicing past tense, talking about biographies is a natural topic. We were asked to write ours in simple sentences. I kept adding to my list of dates and events long after the others were done, and I am still in my thirties. When I read it out to class our teacher’s comment was “your life is like two entirely different halves.” She was right. In one I was a scientist living in Finland, married to a Dutch man. In the other I am a business woman living in Denmark, with a Spanish man. For now.
My young British housemate came home at 1 am last night, again clomping over the floor in her shoes. She closed the door to her room with a bang, and after a moment’s silence there was a huge crash. I thought her suitcase had slipped and fallen onto the floor. In the morning I was happily surprised that she followed me to school – and filled me in on the details of the previous night: it was not the suitcase that had crashed, but she herself.
My beauty sleep was doomed anyway, due to a catfight at 3.30 am (yes, literally, between two whining and spitting cats), and a drunk brawl at 4 am. Indeed, my dreams were visited by two drunk French men who argued about a third person who was not even present. Later I heard they woke up not only me and my landlady, but my Dutch classmate in a house a few hundred meters away. Indeed. This hotly contested third person must have really mattered to them, the way they sorted out their differences in the calles at 4 in the mañana.
(San Sebastián, Spain; August 2019)
I spent the afternoon studying conferring fish that look like plants growing from the sand, curious lobsters with bulging red eyes, and schools of tuna and sardines. The aquarium of San Sebastián is tucked away at the end of the old port. Half of the exhibition was about seafarers, types of trade and ships, corsairs, fishing, and whaling. I learned that Basques were famous for their shipmaking and seafaring skills, even if they rarely represented as captains on ships.
My new housemate came home last night at 00.30 am, clomping over the floor in her shoes and having no discretion to us sleepers. This morning she got up in time but said she would catch up with us later. She did indeed, not by coming to class but by taking photographs of my homework when I got back. I guess it can sometimes be more efficient to only focus on getting homework right.
(San Sebastián, Spain; August 2019)
Did King Carlos of Spain hold the longest job title in the world? ”King Carlos of Spain, king of Castille, Leon, Aragon, the two Sicilies, Jerusalem (!), Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Mallorca, Sevilla, Cerdeña, Córdoba, Córcega, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves of Algecira, Gibraltar, the Canary Isles, the East and West Indies, and the Isles and Continent of Oceania; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, and Milan; Count of Habsburg, Flanders, Tyrol, and Barcelona; Lord of Biscaya and Molina etc.”
The Basque region, or Euskal Herria, stretches across the French-Spanish coastline border, from West of Bilbao to East of Bayonne; and South as far as the Spanish Navarra region goes.
(San Sebastián, Spain; August 2019)
Monday night, linden flower infusion from a huge yellow Winnie the Pooh jug, and homework. Today we were moved into A2 level Spanish. Nobody congratulated us for reaching the end of A1. Instead, past tenses were thrown at us, and this is where the confusion begins when learning Spanish. The preterite form is a swamp which only the most determined ones cross, and not without sinking a few times.
Sunshine, with shade under the tamarind trees
Spent the morning in Christina Enea park and was quite distracted by four white-clad, surprisingly chubby capoeiristas spinning and tumbling about to drum beats from a boom-box. What’s the deal with wearing white? These well-rounded capoeiristas seemed to represent a local club, with Brazilian flags on their shirts and cameras rolling to capture their dancing battles. The one lady of the trio revealed her convex belly and an awfully bright yellow yoga bra, but who cared? She rocked the outfit, and she could do things while wheeling on her hands and feet that I will probably never master. 
(San Sebastián, Spain; August 2019)
Sidra, olives, and a setting sun in San Sebastián. There was my Swiss housemate, whom I had found earlier in his room feeling miserable about a broken eardrum which ended his surfing afternoons. There was my classmate who was going to Paraguay for two years. And her mother, who had just arrived and would join school next week. There was an American classmate who had spent a year traveling in Europe, looking for her father’s lost Jewish family. There was a Filipina ex-classmate whose boyfriend was local; and her two Filipina friends. And there was I, listening to my new friends talk and from time to time turning to look at the sun still warming my back.
(San Sebastián, Spain; August 2019)
Yesterday we completed the first week of class. Some students are leaving, and some new ones will arrive. The pace of the lessons may be fast for someone who hears everything for the first time, but for me this is a highly useful repetition of the Rocket Spanish Level 1 content which I completed last winter. Together with the vocabulary cramming I also undertook last winter I am able to stay afloat and relaxedly listening to what is brought to our attention, obtaining a deeper comprehension of the grammar, and picking up 3-6 words every day.
More pintxos. Of course. This is San Sebastián. I lust for fresh vegetables but all I find is pickled olives, pimientos de padrón, or grilled red peppers on bread (which I do love but in moderation!). At home I steam tenderstem broccoli or flat green beans every day. Word is spreading among my classmates about a restaurant that specializes in fresh vegetarian fare. Sounds like heaven to me right now.
This blue marble 