Hard Core Lesson Four

Rosetta and I have made progress in our relationship. If I spend some quality time with her every few days, she'll make sure I have a good time in Mexico and Spain. Guaranteed. (I'd have a good time anyway, but I'll have a BETTER time knowing what the heck I'm talking about!)

Spain you ask? A wonderful surprise trip with my husband at summer's end. Right when my year with Rosetta is completed. My reward at the onset of this project was rather vague, but now I have two destinations where the Spanish will come in handy. The latter one involves a cruise stopping in Barcelona, Spain as well as several cities in Italy. My last trip to Italy was on a bus tour with my mom for two weeks in 1996 and we hit all the highlights: Rome, Florence, Venice, Assisi, Pisa, and Tuscany. (Don't be duped by the "great beef in Tuscany" - our Indiana corn-fed beef is much better!) It was a trip of a lifetime - an art orgy. My eyes were filled with so much beauty per square foot that it filled me up. France is a food orgy - I'd go back there in a minute just to eat. Italy is much more romantic though - one fella I met said that Americans live to work; Italians live to love. Bonus - if you can speak decent Spanish, the Italians will understand you. I witnessed that as one of our younger Spanish bus-mates was yelling at some Italian thieves who made off with his wallet. I didn't say Italy was without it problems. I have no preconceptions about Spain except that it's supposed to be a new foodie capital on the cutting edge of gastronomy. That, and they don't necessarily speak the same Spanish that the Latin American speakers speak. Maybe the difference between British English and Louisiana English. We'll figure it out when we get there.

In Lesson Four of Unit Three, Rosetta displayed a delightful assortment of pictures of smelly huelen mal, dirty sucio, wet mojado, clean limpia and dry seco dogs perros, shirts camisas, socks calcetines, faces caras, teeth dientes, feet pieds and hands manos. We cleaned lava or brushed cepillo everything with soap jabon and towels toallas. When we were done, we laid our head on our pillow almohada and slept under our sheet sábana and blanket frazada - thank God. A very busy day.

Next Sunday, some of Our Lady of Guadalupe troupe members are getting together for Mass and breakfast. It's only been a month since the Feastday, but it seems longer somehow. Glenis said, "I miss you too much!" "Te extraño tanto!" The feeling is mutual.

Hasta luego