"Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Monday, January 18, 2016

¿Un Morreo?

The misadventures of the bilingual continue.

I went out this weekend with two other au pairs, Alemana and a fellow American - who is a guy, which is always really nice to encounter in the au pair world.
I took them to a little bar that specializes in kalimocho - a mixture of red wine and coke with different flavors of spirits added - and drinking board games you can play with it.

The guy landed on a square that instructed him to roll the die against a player of the opposite sex. The loser had to either drink or give the other person a morreo. None of us knew this word, and it wasn't in our translation apps either. I was ready to just ignore it and simply make the loser drink, but Alemana decided we should ask someone. I was surprised, because usually she's too reserved to talk to people in Spanish. Typically it's only me who orders or makes small talk or asks directions, etc.
But she had decided to make an effort to be more extroverted, and apparently there was no time like the present to start.

So she and I grab the nearest stranger by the arm and ask him in Spanish,
"What is a morreo?"
The young guy we'd asked immediately gives her a startled look and stutters, "It's uh...a kiss...uh, with the tongue..."
Alemana immediately goes scarlet and I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

Well, no one ever said learning another language was always a dignified process...

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