I speak no Castellano very little good.

Ella is now saying 'oh waa' to everyone instead of 'hiiiii'. I, however, am not picking things up as quickly as my little girl. Tyler knows a fair amount of Spanish*, and is especially good at 'traveler's Spanish. So it's really easy to just rely on him to get us by. But I know I'd learn faster if I tried things myself.

Yesterday was a perfect opportunity to try things out. Tyler was sick in bed, and Pea and I needed to get outside. I had decent coffee beans on the mind (haven't found anything good in the supermarkets yet) and decided to quest for beans and take Ella to the park to play. I tried Starbucks (don't hate me). But in a city of 13 million, with only 2 or 3 Starbucks locations, the line was insane. It'd be better to go local anyway, right?

On the way home from 'fwinging and fwiding' (swinging and sliding) in the park, I ventured into a coffee shop called Havanna. I looked at the shelves, but didn't see any coffee beans packaged to be sold. I took a deep breath and headed for counter, hoping that the worker would speak some English. No luck. I explained that, 'I speak no Castellano very little good.' She looked worried.

'Cafe to go home?' in my best Spanish. She looked relieved and pulled out two to-go cups. One small, one large. Hmm.

I saw beans in a huge grinder. I pointed and then made what I thought was a hand sign for a big bag of coffee. She nodded. I got really excited. And she then fixed me a double espresso in the large to go cup. Sigh. I asked for 'con creama', took my cup, and headed home. At least I got coffee in some form out of it. Although, I had to pay extra to get it to go...

*What they speak in Argentina is actually called Castellano. "Cosh-de-shawn-o". The 'll' here are pronounced as a 'sh'. We live on Av. Cabello. Not pronounced 'ca-bah-ho' as in normal Spanish, but rather 'ca-bash-o'.