la vida tonta.

Hola amigos. Soy Nadja. Soy de los estados unidos, en particular, California. Geeze, pretty difficult huh? While you rack your brain trying to decipher that complicated Spanish sentence I will revel in my 2010 last-minute resolution check list. 2010 New Year's Resolutions: #1. Exercise more and eat healthier (that yoyoed throughout the year, on a bit on a slow patch currently), #2. Get better at geography (this I actually accomplished! Do you know which countries border Bosnia Herzegovina and/or the capital of Vanuatu?? Cuz I do!) #3. Restart Spanish studies... well December technically IS still part of 2010 so, check!
Since I am planning on going to Spain during my Euro trip 2011, because I really loved Barcelona when I went there in 2005 and I have enough Spanish vocab floating around my head to avoid sleeping in the street, I decided to start practicing again.
I downloaded a Spanish lesson podcast called Discover Spanish ("Disco" is all that appears on the small screen, so the people looking at my podcast list think that I'm crazy about Disco). It's really cheesy, so cheesy in fact that the host calls himself Johnny Spanish. Yes. Si, es cierto. I also bought the Lonely Planet Phrase Guide for Spain, and I've been practicing my Spanglish with any friend that has a basic understanding of the language.
Learning Spanish has unexpected and embarrassing consequences.
Exhibit A: When I was in middle school I had to take Spanish at my school. Like most of my fellow classmates I didn't really learn much, just basic greetings and vocabulary that never seemed to be relevant in real life situations. Occassionally a Spanish song would play and I would recognize a couple words and feel an inflated gratification with my self assumed bilingual skills. One time when one of these Spanish songs was playing I heard the word "besame". Besar meant "to kiss" in Spanish and I admired the cute Spanish way to simply say "kiss me". I've never spoken Spanish to anyone.... so fast forward 13 years. A couple days ago I was walking down Namsan tower with a friend of mine from France (who speaks French, English and Spanish, grr Europeans making me feel lazy and unaccomplished) and I was feebly trying to speak to him in Spanish. While I was listing all the words, sayings and conversation topics I knew in my head, it occurred to me that I knew just enough Spanish to be a successful prostitute in a Spanish speaking country.
I thought this epiphany was hilarious so I starting saying different things that related to it, "hola senior. Venconmigo! Eres muy guapo. Dame el dinero." We were both chuckling when I remembered the Spanish song, so I blurted, "Besame!" My friends eyes buldged and he said, "woah.." in a surprised voice.
"What? It just means kiss me."
He started laughing, "No it it doesn't. It means something very bad." After some prodding he finally told me that it's a very vulgar way of saying "F*** me". My innocent childhood misconception came crashing down all around me. "Hee hee whoops." I said, glad that the night sky was shadowing my red blushing face. Luckily I didn't say that in Spain!
Exbihit B: I was taking the subway to my friend's birthday party the other night and I decided to bring my little Spanish book with me on the ride. It's very convenient, it's about the size of a wallet so it can fit in my pocket. Es muy conveniente! I've been working through it chapter by chapter but I decided to be spontaneous and flip to a random page. As I opened the book, the train approached the next station and I looked up to see the name of the stop. I didn't recognize the name, so I looked at the map and oriented myself before I went back to my book. The first phrase on the page that caught my eye was Touch me here -tocame aqui. I giggled sophomorically at an imaginary "that's what she said" comment and then looked to the next phrase. I think we should stop now/ Hmm... thats weird, that one sounds a little sexual too. Oh yeah! Faster! What the?-Do you have a condom? I looked at the top of the page and it said Social: Romance and yes, it was a page telling me what to say during sex! I didn't even think that a phrasebook would have something like that. But then... I look to my right and a Korean guy, maybe a little older than me, is just staring right at the page I was looking at! I quickly slapped the book closed and avoided eye contact with him for the next couple stops.