Ready For Marriage!

(as usual - a late post from +week ago)

The room is a confused mess of languages as I hastily try to finish the last Spanish tortilla at our tiny kitchenette while four Spaniards (ahem...they would appreciate that I clarified that one, maybe two? are Catalan, one is Basque, and the other one or two are...just Spanish??) and the lone Frenchie sit around at our kitchen table waiting for me to stop clanging pots and pans together so that we can eat dinner.

I've invited Elisa and Inigo over to eat with Alberto, Maxime, Clara and I, and the Spanish toritilla was a safe bet as it is:

1 - one of the only things I know how to cook pretty well
2 - a Spanish dish and the majority of this dinner party is from Spain
3 - it's ¡MUY BIEN!

They're trying to speak mostly French for the benefit of Maxime and I, but inevitably the two languages are interwoven together, forming a nice little Span-ench (Franish?) with the occasional frustrated English outburst between Inigo and I, as he studied in the Netherlands and is fluent in English but still breaking in French, and I feel like speaking the four words of Wolof I remember just to annoy everyone.

Finally, the tortilla is ready! I spin around with a little flourish, and as I set it on the table Inigo is so pleased with a little taste from home that he declares, "Tu es prête pour le mariage!"  (You're ready for marriage!)Too bad my next move is to put the still-hot, greasy pan on something wet and lots of scary sizzling sounds snap and crack, more or less negating his statement, but allowing for a nice little chuckle from everyone before digging in.

As well all know, you can't eat at my place, or really, be in my presence, without escaping some form of game playing. We bust out the cards after we finished, which was really quite a bad idea, as describing and trying to understand directions in another language usually takes more time than playing the game itself.

So, we grab a pot, stick it in the middle of the table, and from there everyone thinks of as many popular figures to write down on scraps of paper to throw in to try game #2. We divide into two teams, and each round we have a minute to have our team members guess as many of these characters as possible. Round 1 - merely describing them in French...not bad, except that Inigo speaks English at first...Round 2 - throwing the names back in the pot but only being allowed one word this time to describe the characters you choose. Round 3 - throwing the names back in the pot again but not being allowed to talk at all, and instead having to act out the character.

Imagine, how would you gesture or act to convery that you are Britney Spears? Obama? Barbie? Sarkozy?

We had a great time watching Elisa zoom across the room like a bat to make us understand she was Batman, and when I got down on all fours and (tried to) put my fingers on my head I was OBVIOUSLY Pumba from the Lion King. Maxime was so confused and frustrated at one point to describe his character that he made very curvy outlines about 20 times in a row to indicate female but we were all let down to learn it was Queen Elizabeth, who is not all that voluptuous.

All in all, a successful evening, I think.

And to clarify: Not ready for marriage, thank you.

Love,
Katie