Language

I find that every time I want to say something in Spanish, out comes Japanese. It's like my brain can only handle one second language at a time and Japanese has overtaken a lot of what I learned in my high school and college Spanish classes.

The streets of Guadalajara belong to automobiles. Pedestrians don't have much place on them! Yesterday I asked Elias (our hired driver for the week) in my choppy Spanish if there are places for people who want to walk and not use cars - because even the sidewalks are often taken over by parked cars. He agreed and said that cars basically reign the streets. We've heard that you'll be ok driving (or walking) as long as you have eye contact agreement with other drivers, allowing you to go or cross or whatever, BEFORE you do what you want to do. No one follows the stop signs - and I've been told if you do, you'll be hit from behind. There are tons of "topes" (speed bumps) on even the major roadways, which apparently is the government's way of forcing people to slow down and retain some order on the city streets.

Anyway, back to the language thing. I was observing a mother trying to cross the street with her child and said to Elias, "Trafico es muy aburrido." In hind sight I said, "Traffic is very boring." But what I was trying to say was "PELIGROSO" which means dangerous. Why would I say "aburrido"?! And then it came to me. "Danger" in Japanese is "abunai." I made "abunai" into a Spanish word! Ha ha. But still, Elias agreed. "Si, trafico es aburrido." He is very nice.

It's hard to look Latina and not be pera-pera (another Japanese word) in the Language. I'm sure lots of people think I'm strange and didn't do well in school!