The Wine Spritzer of Fluency

A guy walks into a bar carrying a shot-glass in one hand and a pigeon in the other. ¨What´ll it be? ¨ says the bartender. ¨English, straight up.¨ The bartender fills his glass; three fingers, no ice. Two minutes later, another guy walks in, holding just an empty cup.

¨And what are you having, Sir?¨

The Second Guy´s been practicing so he responds proudly. ¨Why, yes, I´ll have just a little bit of English with a twist. On the rocks. Thank you.¨

This perplexes the Bartender and he looks to the First Guy for help. ¨Oh here, allow me,¨ he says, and releases the pigeon which immediately relieves itself into the glass.

The Second Guy is horrified and slams his drink down on the bar. ¨What kind of nonsense is this? I said I wanted SOME English! What do I have now, other than a load of useless sh*t?¨

The Bartender shrugs. ¨Same difference.¨

Now let´s pretend that instead of English, the two gentleman in question were in want of Spanish. And it wasn´t a bar they were visiting so much as it was an actual country. And now let´s freely admit that I´m representing Hombre Numero Dos and the bar is Chile. Where am I going with this? To the end of disillusionment, that´s where.

I´d like to believe that anytime someone goes to a new country/city/airport, he/she aims to develop a certain kind of rapport with the new surroundings. So if I arrived in Chile in February, then Santiago and I have been in a relationship for roughly four months. The honeymoon is over. And I fear it may have something to do with our lack of successful communication. What began as a giddy foray into the unknown is now a day-to-day reality awash in uncertainty and confusion.

We all had a friend or two in college who proclaimed her boyfriend was THE one—heck, we may have even been that person ourselves—and then that friend dated her significant other for two years and realized that what were cutesy flaws in the beginning of the relationship were more like impassable craters by the end. Sure, I speak a little, understand a little more, can read well on a good day. But there´s nothing suave about my delivery of double R´s or soft pronunciation of D´s. The sheepish face that goes with my ¨oh i just got here¨ bit has lost it´s touch. Apparently the explanation stales when used 90 days after its origination.

So now what? If Santiago itself were a real person, it´d be about that time to have The Talk—as in the one where it decides its fed up with my inability to express emotions or get into anything deep. Which can only mean that it must be time for me to beg for forgivness, swear I´ll do my best to change and promise all the stuff I (haven´t) said isn´t what I meant.