Bo Finn Finn

Location: Madrid, Spain

Wednesday June 23, 2010

It’s curious how I start to crave food that I didn’t even like that much before in the States once I am away for a long enough time. Jade invited Lauren and me over for a dinner of some homemade tacos. Even though we had to make do without the taco seasoning, the soft tacos were quite delish. And I don’t even like Mexican food that much! Except for maybe Taco Bell chalupas with their delicious light and fluffy shells and E. coli-laced lettuce and dodgy taco stand tacos by Bob’s gas station on 82^nd. Ah, nothing like some homemade food and good company on a Wednesday night.

Jade and I headed out to a bar in the Northeast part of town to meet up with Nikita, Valentina, Alex, and Nikita’s friend of a friend, as Lauren stayed behind, because she wasn’t feeling too well. As Nikita and co. were running on Spanish time as usual, Jade and I waited outside of the metro stop. Nikita wanted us to come because she felt it was a bit shady to hang out with a guy she barely knew. Valentina felt the same way. I think we’re a bit anxious and paranoid from our orientation day and from the countless hassling we get from creepy and often culturally insensitive (okay, more like, culturally-ignorant, since the concept of political correctness doesn’t actually exist here) Spanish men on the street.

Alex came to find us sitting under a bronze Velázquez statue outside the metro stop to lead us to bar Bo Finn, where we saw Valentina and Nikita sitting in the tereza with two Spanish guys. Greeting them with two kisses on each cheek, we sat down to chat. It wasn’t as sketchy as we had predicted. Nikita’s friend, whom she met during a summer program, is a Madrid native, but because he currently has final exams, he sent his friend, Ramiro, to show us around town instead. Ramiro, dark-haired, lanky, and with your typical Spanish features, seemed quite goofy and nice. Both spoke English. But our table spoke in Spanish the whole time. Ramiro’s mannerisms in talking and joking reminded me of Celia’s. His friend, Alejandro or Alex (we’ll call him Alejandro here, even though more people call him Alex, so as to not mix him up with Harvard Alex), was a bit shorter, but hotter, with tanner skin, lighter features, light-brown eyes, and light brown hair. After ordering a pint of beer for myself, I chatted with Alejandro, since he was sitting to my left. Talk about good Spanish practice, when I had to converse one-on-one with someone who wasn’t as patient or good at explaining things in Spanish as Carmen. It was also good Spanish cultural immersion when the bill came and Alejandro paid for it before we offered to chip in (the other kids did later for their tinto), which is unlike Americans, with whom going Dutch is a given.

Speaking of my señora, according to Ramiro and Alejandro, it’s not correct to refer to my señora as “mi señora,” because “mi señora” implies that she is my master and I am her slave, which hopefully, isn’t true, unless IES did a bad-bad job at matching students with señoras. Instead, we should say “la señora con quien vivo,” i.e.: the señora with whom I live. Alex commented that “la señora con quien vivo” was a mouthful and awkward to say. When he said “torpe” for awkward, we found out from Ramiro that torpe doesn’t fit “awkward” in our American sense of the word. Instead, torpe means that something is hard to describe. There is no word in the Spanish language to describe an awkward-turtle situation, other than, perhaps, incómodo (uncomfortable). Good thing we’ve been using “torpe” loosely and loudly all trip… how awkward…