Today's Spanish Lesson

Suzy:
estar como sopa = "to be like soup" = to look like a drowned rat. Especially useful for describing how one looks after walking around looking for a flamenco show in the rain for about 30 minutes, even with an umbrella. The funniest part isn't the expression; it's that Spaniards in Andalucía are so unaccustomed to the rain (evidently it never rains here) that life suddenly stops when it happens. Read: no flamenco show. Balls! Now we are like soup. Oh well... at least we had some good wine and tapas at the "Museum of Oils" before going home.

tapa = "tapa" = tapa. Sorry; some things just don't translate. Here in Andalucía, it is typical to order a beer or wine and they bring you a tapa to the table for free (in northern Spain the tapas are charged separately). Tapas are like a variety of appetizers that can be all kinds of things, and vary from bar to bar. Last night the roomies and Greg and I all went with one of my colleagues, Miguel Ángel (yes, like Michelangelo but all Spanish-y). He is from Almería, so he showed us around a few bars. One of them was like a specialty tapas bar and had all kinds of neat-sounding ones (look at the wall for the menu in the picture). I tried the "croquetas" (Greg is holding one in the pic) which are fried balls of flour with serrano ham bits mixed inside (think the consistency of mashed potatoes flavored with bacon pieces and then fried so the outside is crunchy but the inside is fluffy). I've had "croquetas" a few places and they are probably my faves, but at this place they were served with a pear aioli. D-lish!

se me fue el santo al cielo = "the saint went to heaven on me" = I lost my train of thought. Especially useful after the third or fourth (okay, fifth or sixth ;) )tapas bar.

tío / tía = "uncle / aunt" = buddy, pal, guy, man, woman, etc. When we first came it was hard to figure out who was related to who here because they were all calling each other uncle and aunt. Turns out, it's slang (in Spain) for any of the various terms that we use in English to address our friends. Hence, "Hey, what's up, girl?" would be, "Oye, ¿qué pasa, tía?"

That's all for now, kids.

{As a side note, if any of you have Halloween pics that you could send me via email, my students at school would love to see them. It's hard to explain the tradition without pictures. Especially you, parents, who have embarrassing photos of Greg and me as little ones in costume. Let's see 'em!}