Something fun for the whole family and other news

You know what I think is fun? Answering 140 questions about words. And now you can too!

I found this survey on the internet the other day, made by North Carolina State University that will tell you which region/cities in the continental United States has/have the accent most similar to your own. I took the short(er) 25-question survey first, but was kind of disappointed when Salt Lake City showed up as the city with the dialect most similar to my own. I tried again, with the longer version (I know there are probably better ways to be spending my time, but whatever) and got Tacoma, Bellingham and Everett as the cities with the dialect most similar to mine. Not too bad!

I was a little worried that after a year abroad, my accent would change, and for a while I was convinced that it had. In reality though, I think I have changed my manner of speaking around non-native and non-American English speakers more than anything else.

In other news, I am still waiting on that new residency card. It turned out that the delay was caused by two things: 1. I actually did need this one document that the guy at the Santiago Foreigner's Office told me that I did not need, and 2. when the office in A Coruña tried to contact me about the error they screwed up the address (by writing plaza instead of rúa) and the letter got lost in the mail. They eventually sent me a text message telling me I had to come to the A Coruña office in person. super.

It should be all sorted out now however (though this is what I thought before and I was proven wrong). Now my problem is that I am scared to actually call the A Coruña office to see if they got all the completed forms and photocopies they wanted. Is it normal to spend two or three days working up the courage to make a phone call? Probably not, but autopshychoanalysis is probably not the solution.

Taking a walk in the Alameda

On a happier note, some of my family has come to visit me in my adopted home. Celeste and Johnnie arrived on the fifth and have been/are going to be jetting around Spain and Europe for at least a solid month. 

We've mostly poked around Galicia, visiting A Coruña (with a nice little stop at the Foreigner's Office) to see the castle and the Roman lighthouse, Pontevedra to see a medieval festival, and then Lugo to meet up with Julián and Carmen, and returning American Ryan. Celeste and Johnnie took a little overnight trip to Léon and Astorga, to take in the architecture and morcilla

Right now, Celeste has rented a car and is going for a little road trip to the beach, while Johnny is off on his own solo adventure, though I won't say more for fear of giving my mother a heart attack. I'm at home, procrastinating while I should be planning lessons. Later this week, we'll be taking a trip to my favorite place I've been in Europe: Porto. We'll see some other places as well, but I'm really looking forward to another francesinha. 

Waiting for the joust to start in Pontevedra. 

And finally, a little behind the game, is I've been catching up on the America's Cup coverage. Oh my goodness those boats are so absolutely gorgeous. The speed, the physics, the tactics, even the venue is beautiful and epic.