Well, so far I have failed in my first attempt to prostrate myself before the Spanish language.  Mission: Unsurprising.

    “Perdon, habla* poquito castellano” I repeated to myself over and over again as I walked down the street.  Joey, moments earlier had coached me in the finer points of the Argentine double L’s versus the Spanish/Mexican double L’s, which had Meghan in hysterics because she knows full well I don’t know shit about either.  My Spanish being confined to “hola” and “gracias”, I’m sad to say. When I left Meg was crawling back into bed to nurse her reunion-weekend-cumuppance and Joey was in the can.  I slipped out the door and left them to their own devices – I’m trying to stay out of the way as much as possible.  Even though she is my best friend and I have no problem leaning on her I still don’t want them to feel as though they have to play tour guide with me.  God knows they’ve had enough of that since they moved here in December.  Their little two- bedroom casa has been a veritable hostel and I can tell they’re beat.  
    Out on the street I am walking.  And walking. And this is fine.  The problem is that I feel like I’m on my way to a first date or a blind date, or some other horrendously awkward experience that is going to make me wish I were a morning drinker, or better yet, a morning IV drug-user.  All I need is a coffee and a croissant. This is all I require.  But that, of course, requires human interaction which, unfortunately, in turn requires me to showcase my horrendous Spanish.  Cue the mild anxiety that leads to pacing back and forth in front of several cafés looking either sketchy or exceedingly daft.  
    So from this little intro you are probably thinking two things.  a) I have never traveled anywhere before where I’ve had to speak another language and b) I am completely neurotic/insane.  You would be right on only one account, and, hint, it’s not the first.  The thing is, I have traveled quite a bit.  And other thing is that I have engaged in willful ignorance when it comes to any language other than French (no, I’m not proud, thanks for asking though).  But, I’ve been lucky and have managed to get by more than well without having to flail around with someone else’s mother-tongue.  My past amazing travel experiences are a testament to both the ubiquity of English and the faux-patience of strangers hoping to get tourist dollars out of your ugly American ass.  

The Crux of the Situation and Ill-advised Navel Gazing

In my mind there are two ways in which you can embarrass/humble yourself abroad (okay maybe just two language related ways), and one is more admirable than the other.  The first is a refusal to learn the language and engage with people in a way that doesn’t center around your experience traveling and thus inhibits the shared experience of a place/space/inter-cultural dialogue.  The second is jumping in head first as far as learning the language and flailing around a bit, admitting that you are lacking and ultimately coming to the experience with a certain amount of curiosity, humility and awareness of your social/cultural/economical impact.  In short the first way is embarrassing yourself by not embarrassing yourself and the second is what I consider a little more honest brand of embarrassment.   (Then there’s the THIRD form of embarrassment which consists of irrepressible navel-gazing, which is, hello, my favorite.)

    Until recently I didn’t really see the distinction, and if I did, I just acknowledged it with a wave of the hand and a self-deprecating, “yeah I’m an asshole, I get it,” flourish.  C’est fini.  How I’ve gotten by in the approximately ten countries I’ve traveled to is a combination of fluent companions, bilingual friends who were nationals, and a reliance on guidebooks that direct you to places that are invariably English-friendly.  Of course that wasn’t always the case, I distinctly remember honing my hand-gesture technique in Sitia, Crete where it went a phenomenally long way.  But, for the most part, yes.  I’m an asshole.  (Sidenote: What bugs me are people who talk about their travel experiences as if they were never assholes, as if they somehow assimilate into every culture with ease and cultural awareness and never went through the guidebook phase, and generally act as if they don’t possess an amero-centric bone in their bodies and never did. To which I say, Bitch, please.)  But here I am, and I’m trying to be a reformed asshole.  You know, like the ex-boyfriend you see years later who miraculously dropped the commitment-phobia and is suddenly a prince but you have smartened up so, HA!  Or maybe that’s not a good analogy at all.  Whatever.  Maybe I’ll go through all this effort and then Argentina will be all, “whatever asshole, I’m over you,”  Am I still talking?

Swoop-Back to the Narrative

    I am slow-walking down the street and finally I come to a café with the adorably un-intimidating moniker, “The Coffee Store.” I figure it’s time to pull up my skirt and be a man.  Except I’m a woman and I think that could be problematic because the guys are already looking at me like I am like something they’d like to eat so I open the door and walk in with my skirt in place.  I am of course castigating myself internally for the ridiculous mini-panic attack I’m having.  Perdon, habla poquito castellano… Perdon, habla poquito castellano. I walk up to the counter and then realize that this is a sit-down place, which I’m starting to realize is every place in Buenos Aires. Perdon, habla poquito castellano.

“Umm, so should I just sit?” I say, while pointing a thumb over my shoulder toward an empty table.  

    So much for “Perdon, habla poquito castellano” as a conversation starter.  

    WIMP.  

    Tail tucked tightly between my legs, I go sit down. Soon the waitress comes up to me and I start with, “Perdon, hablo poquito…” and then trail off completely blanking on the fourth word.  Luckily she is nodding.  Somehow she gets my meaning and I flounder around with the coffee order.  Things get critical with the croissant ordering because she’s asking me in Spanish what kind I want and I have a better shot figuring out the Spanish word for “hydrogenated oil” than I do for “plain”.  So eventually I just slice my hand horizontally and say “plain” in English.  First she looks like I just sat a three-headed baby on the table and told her it was her long-lost child.  When she brings back (GET THIS) a plain croissant, I want to kiss her.   And she knows I want to kiss her so she walks away quickly. I am overjoyed.  
    As you can see my ability to communicate via hand gestures is Olympic.  It is also the reason I haven’t been forced to really try in the past. In the past I was just happy to get my damn croissant.  Today my horizontal air-slicing feels tainted instead of triumphant.  I am determined not to fall into this trap again, this particular brand of embarrassment.  I’d rather fall into the second category of embarrassment, the one that involves complete submergence of ego.  I have always resisted this.  Though I took six years of French (I KNOW) and can read and write passably, I absolutely cannot hold a conversation.  Why?  Because I all but refused to speak it in class, only contributing orally when a gun (read: an F) was held to my head by whichever Madame was lucky enough to have me.  I hate sounding like an idiot – and trying to speak another language is initially a surefire way to do that.  The inability to speak another language has to be one of my greatest disappointments, and one that I can, hopefully, find a way to turn around before I die.  In keeping with that goal I’ve decided Argentina will be different.  This month will be different.  This trip will be different.  I will be different.  
    I plan on exploring largely by myself and not relying on Meghan as a crutch.  I’m determined not to fall into the comfortable familiarity of that first pit of embarrassment, but instead flail around in the second, prefacing everything with Perdon, habla poquito castellano, and fighting my way through the baffled looks and inner-eye rolls.  
    But for now, I will be sitting in the Coffee Store with my mini-coffee and my mini-croissant (served by my mini-waitress) until the end of time because clearly I have no clue how to ask for the damn check.  

* editors note: Management (me) has recently edited the improper usage of "poquito" (formerly "picito") which took several minutes and brain cells, and thusly has decided to ignore the improper usage of "habla" conceding that it much more succinctly conveys the entire sentiment of the post, and therefore, stands.