I'm typing this on the fly in a largely deserted internet cafe in the Zona Rosa area of Mexico City. I normally craft these entries a little before uploading them, but the clock's ticking, I'm tired, and I've got an early start and a long day of travelling tomorrow so please take that into account.
It's about 10.30pm local time and I've just popped out from my hotel to upload the "after" video of my Spanish experiment. It's a little dark but the sound's okay. I think I'm probably making as many mistakes as my first video but I'm being a bit more adventurous in what I'm trying to say.
When all is said and done I think I had slightly too high expectations of my (semi-) immersive Spanish experiment. The closest I ever came to speaking a second language was French, and I studied that for five years at school, without getting even close to the point of being able to hold a non-stilted conversation. That said, my Spanish has its moments, and hopefully I can build on them with further study in London.
It feels like with an extra week my Spanish level would have gone up a level, at least the last week was quite frustrating and I hoped it was the precursor to a mini-breakthrough.
I also had rather unrealistic expectations about how often I would be able to upload videos and update this blog while I was away. I must get out of the habit of over-promising and under-delivering but hopefully what I have uploaded has been interesting.
I've really enjoyed my time in Mexico. I'd like to come back at some point but having said that there are so many other countries to see (and many of them speak Spanish).
Random memories I'll take home with me include:
- watching any one of the half-dozen very popular novellas (soap operas) that seem to dominate the television in the evening, any of which impressively redefines the concept "over-acting"
- being joined in the carriage on almost every journey on the Mexico City metro by someone with a battery-powered speaker embedded in a modified rucksack blasting out tracks from one of several pirate CDs he was attempting to sell
- pretending that everything I was served at mealtimes was delicious (which was mostly true) including fried cactus which always had a slimy, gooey texture as if each slice has been recently pulled from a baby's mouth
- feeling slightly uneasy at the Saturday morning programme "Disney's World of English" where Mexican children were given cash rewards based on their grasp of my mother tongue
- drinking cheap tequila out of a plastic bottle with yellow handles that looked like a bulk-buy bottle of cooking oil
Okay, I'm getting kicked out of the internet cafe, so I'd better cut it short. Buenas noches!
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