Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Johnny, you were right!

As much as I hate to admit that my little brother was right, I'm going to have to go ahead and just admit it. Johnny asked me before I left, "aren't you going to miss Iowa football, Cubs baseball, the Bears, and Chicago style pizza?" I remember Natalie, his girlfriend, said in the background, "It's not you going to Colombia, it's her!" I also believe that I replied very smugly, "Oh, Johnny, you just don't get it...giving up those things is easy when you're in a new country, learning a new language, and a new culture." And I also believe that I said I wouldn't miss those things because I'd be having so much fun trying all the new foods and watching all the new sports and TV shows here.

He was right though. I am freaking out because I'm unsure if the channels I have will be broadcasting the right baseball playoff games and I'm wondering every week what is going on with Iowa football. I was able to watch the Bears game this week, but I'm sure that might be the only one since it was a night game. But, what's really getting me, is the lack of good pizza. I can't even explain how much I'm craving something that resembles pizza from the States. I'd even be happy for a little frozen pizza at this point. Which leads to my next story of mistranslated information...

Last Friday night I went home, fought off a nap, and then decided that I didn't want to go out. All I really wanted was a pizza and to watch the presidential debate at home. So, I decided to take a little Spanish test and see if I could order a pizza over the phone. There's a Dominos here, so I thought it'd be the closest thing to normal pizza I could find. By the way, there are little pizza stands everywhere here and I've been trying them all out, but it's just not good pizza. For example, my choices last week were to get Hawaiian or meat, so I chose the meat. I ended up with all kinds of ham, sausage, and what looked like chopped up hot dogs on my pizza! I've found it very difficult to find anything without meat and I prefer veggies. Anyway, it took two and a half hours, but I did finally get my pizza. Basically, they had the wrong address and I wasn't sure how to call back and tell them that they never showed. Plus, I had to figure out if I was even hungry at that point, but I pressed on because I didn't want to fail the test. I'm pretty sure that when I did call back, my broken Spanish sounded something like this: "I called you and the pizza no came." To which the lady handed the phone over and yelled out, "Es la gringa" which means, "it's the gringa." I did get my pizza, and no, it was not very good, and there were many miscommunications with the delivery guy, but I did get pizza, so that is something to be proud of I guess. And, I did watch the debates.

2 comments:

Amy said...

I guess I should be embarrassed (not pregnant) that I have a tv with full cable capabilities and a computer hooked up to the internet yet I choose to watch America's Next Top Model. I applaud your efforts to stay informed. And it further proves my point that people who don't live in the US know more about the US than people who do live there. But at least we get pizza. :)

PJ said...

Seeing the Cubs and Iowa the last two weeks makes me wish I was somewhere that I couldn't watch.

So funny about the pizza.