Re-igniting my love affair with Spanish

Since I've been focusing on Italian so much for the past few months, I had forgotten how much I really do like Spanish. I had been forcing Spanish out of my head, on the theory that Spanish and Italian could not co-habitate peacefully in one brain (unless one of them is your native language). Kind of like those Asian fighting fish, where you can't put them in the same bowl or even in two bowls next to each other, or they try to kill each other.

However, so far my Spanish (which was never stellar, just...competant) seems to be coming back, and I'm remembering all the things I really like about the language. The "v" that's somewhere between a "v" and a "b", the "d" that's somewhere between a "d" and a "th" - neither one hitting the consonant directly, but edging right up close to it, leaving a little layer of air between lips (for the v) or between tongue and teeth (for the d). I like that. I like the way you can tack the object pronouns onto the end of the infinitive, like Italian.

Another thing I like is the "ll", which I was taught to prounounce as in the English word "million," - familiar even to most completely Spanish-less people from the phrase "como se llama?" (what is your name?"). But in Argentina they prounounce by beloved ll - and also the letter y - like "shz," which is terribly confusing. I insist on prounouncing it with the lovely roll, and for a while Megan would correct me. Look, I said, I already have Spanish and Italian engaged in a fight to the death inside my brain; I can't possibly risk layering on any dialects of either one. No Sicilian, no weird shz sounds. Surely the Argentines realize that most of the Spanish-speaking world pronounces ll and y differently, and they will work with me on this. Which is somewhat true, but not always.

So yesterday, on my first full day here, with a mysterious subway strike underway, I was encouraged by my fellow travellers to ask the cabbie what's up with the strike. Moving up from menus and money exchanges to government-labor relations - it seemed like a small leap. And so my linguistic confidence has been increasing ever since.

Yesterday we took the train to a small town called Tigre outside of B.A., along the river. Formerly the out-of-town get-away for the porteno elite to escape the heat and crowds, it is still charming but is clearly one of those towns whose grandeur has seen better days. Beautiful mansions, some kept up nicely, some converted to businesses, some down and out, and some completely dilapidated. You could see that neglect and climate had conspired together to slowly wear the buildings down, a bit of New Orleans with its heavily Spanish-influenced architecture.

We have made our road trip arrangements - car rented (with permission to enter into Chile), and accomodations despite the fact that the coast of Chile is completely booked up for some kind of music festival. Which should be interesting.

As the only two internationally licensed drivers, Megan and I are kind of excited to head into the country, but we'll have to play rock-paper-scissors for who gets us out of the city. Like most big cities outside the US, lane markers in Buenos Aires are totally just a suggestion.