Scene Joan at her computer, readying the next group of articles.  Luis and René (friend and video editor of Viajando en Español)  at her back talking as though she weren’t there. Luis:  ¿Como está Paola?  ¿Como va su embarazo?  (How is Paola? (René´s wife) How is the pregnancy going?) René:  Bien, normal …  (good, as would be [...]

…the question put to Luis and I by a new friend and fellow Spanish language enthusiast.  Well, the complete question went something like, “What is the difference between having passion for something and being obsessed by something?”  It was a question posed innocently enough, over dinner, the four of us present;  she, her husband, Luis and me.  But appearances [...]

43 days later -  Buenos Aires -  departamento que da a la calle, el 3 piso, con balcón (mi eleccion de modo que fue posible ver todo el mundo desde mi dormitorio) Luis is already in the throws of “fining tune”, (that´s “fine tuning” en inglés) MY well thought out choices for my VERY OWN SOLO experience here in Buenos Aires.  ”Honey, are you sure [...]

So we are in Buenos Aires about 2 years ago, Luis and I.  Reluctantly I brought him along on a trip that I arrange to get CEU hours for the renewal of my Psychology license.  He wasn´t invited initially mind you.  I wanted to do this on my own. The idea was to improve the Spanish [...]

My comment was innocent enough, meant really just to break the tension; “No has tenido mucha suerte con las mujeres, ¿Eh?”  “You haven’t had much luck with the ladies?” He looked away from me then, his eyes searching something invisible to me in his perifery.  An ironic chuckle escaped which betrayed just enough emotion to cause a breach in his [...]

Many of you know from previous posts that Luis and I could not hail from more opposite extremes of cultural tradition.  My very German upbringing and his Latino has been the fodder for more color in our lives together than one could hallucinate after a few Pisco Sours. (actually, any descriptor that occurred to you before you actually read my artfully selected choice, ”color”, would [...]

I am kinda excited about my entry for today.  I was in a therapy session yesterday with one of my clients, from a Spanish speaking country.  She speaks only Spanish and she was was trying to say a word….in Spanish.  I watched her for a while and thought pretty early on in her struggle that [...]

Remember the 50′s show “I Love Lucy”?  Remember how Ricky, from Cuba, would begin to rapid fire Spanish every time he got a little hot under the collar?  Of course the joke was that his Latin blood had predisposed him to go from 0 to 100 in a micro-second but old stereotypes and Lucy´s extraordinary perturbations aside, the [...]

This is the way Álvaro, our author from Honduras, signed off on his note to me this morning.  I had been watching the news yesterday and saw how violent things continued in that country due to the recent “golpe de estado” that had occurred the week before, and wrote him a quick note indicating that he and [...]

It hits us without warning and really quite out of the blue… our heart races at the thought of it, our pupils dilate, our thoughts obsess with desire.  We imagine whole worlds opening up before us, yielding access to exotic people and adventure.  We attend our first date, I mean class, and we are not disappointed; rather hopeful, excited even as we picture ourselves tucked away [...]