Every now and then someone on one of my tapas tours, upon hearing that I have lived in Spain for more than 27 years, says to me “wow, and yet you still have your Canadian accent!”. And I am always puzzled by this. I mean, what am I supposed to sound like? If I were living in England or Australia/New Zealand then, yes, it is possible that I would pick up something of those ENGLISH accents… but in Spain? Is it expected that I speak with a Spanish accent now when talking in my native language?
Meanwhile, Spanish people are always, um, appalled when they find out I’ve lived here for 27 years and still speak like I do in Spanish. Apparently with a very strong Canadian accent. In fact, I’ve been told many times that my accent in Spanish is atrocious (!!!). Which of course makes me never even want to speak to anyone again. And I know, there’s really no excuse after all this time, etc etc. But there are a few reasons…
The last couple of months or so I have been falling behind in my correspondence. And also my blog reading and interaction there. What can I say? I am online almost all day long, mostly flitting here and there getting work stuff done for clients, and also checking my own social media and websites and trying to keep them updated. So it takes a special effort sometimes to just sit down in front of the computer for some “me time”.
I don’t know about you, but I almost never use my land line phone anymore. In fact, I almost gave up my land line when I moved in February. I think I’m glad I didn’t because it comes in handy more often than I thought it would. But it turned out that the two old plug-in phones I’ve had for years have been dodgy lately, and one has totally kicked the bucket. And both sets of cordless phones I had (one of my own, one inherited from Susan when she left town) are on the fritz – seems they only perform for a couple of years at best. So I ended up getting a new cordless pair this past weekend – one for upstairs and one for downstairs.
casa azahar 