"One Green Salad with Ham and Cheese"

What an eventful weekend it has been here in Barcelona.

Friday ended just as any other friday would in this chaotic city. Lunch, late dinner, parties until the morning.

After my last class on Friday, I went with a few friends to a small cafe across the road from campus. It is here where I order my new favorite post-class lunch: A big green salad with rolled up ham and cheese. One of my friends/classmates is much more fluent than I am in Spanish and therefore had made friends with the two waitresses before introducing me to the cafe. As they enhance his spanish, he attempts to teach them common and relative phrases in English. "Hi, how are you doing?" and "Thank you" are two that I had heard him teach one of the waitresses at first. It baffled me how difficult it was for this woman to process, in my opinion, such simple sentences.

I then realized how difficult it has been, for me, to remember simple phrases such as asking the meaning of menu items, asking for the check, etc. I remembered how rewarding it was to be able to communicate in another language successfully. Such simple english phrases, to me, were very difficult for this woman to retain.

After placing our order in the kitchen, the waitress walked back into the dining area and yelled

"One green salad with Ham and Cheese", simultaneously wearing a large smile and giving us the thumbs up sign. She had successfully placed an order to the kitchen in English.

As simple and easy as it may have primarily seemed to me, I grew a significant amount of respect for this waitress who was, for once, putting in a solid effort to learn OUR language. So often an American will have to conform to the norms of Spanish society in a restaurant while having to deal with rolled eyes and bitter attitudes from waiters/waitresses who remain impatience with our scrappy use of spanish. This particular waitress is one of the few exceptions who is extremely happy to hear us trying to learn her language while in return making an effort to learn a minority language in her city.

It felt extremely relieving to experience such an occurrence that may seem miniscule to any outside party. It's comforting to know that there are locals who genuinely enjoy cultural immersion with American inhabitants.

On to my third week of class. It is unbelievable how fast the six weeks are moving.

buenas noches!