Why me?!
Okay, so there I was, riding the Las Vegas McCarran rental car shuttle to go pick-up my rental car. A group of 5 men of Hispanic descent enter the bus and are having their conversation in VIVID Spanish. I pick up a word here and there and am amused by their animated gestures.
As we are getting off the bus, I hand one of the guys his bag. He says "Gracias" and I of course reply "De nada". Because of my impeccable accent, he assumes I am a Spanish speaker and asks, "Hablas español?" and I reply "Hablo un poquito". What ensued is exactly what I get for trying to showcase my limited Spanish skills. The following conversation has been translated from English to Spanish for your reading ease.
So the guy ignores the part about me only speaking a little Spanish and starts to ask me where I'm from originally and I tell him Trinidad. He asks me why I'm in Vegas, if it's for vacation and I say, no, for work. Some other small talk ensues, we part ways, and I head to the rental car counter.
Well…the guy comes over to the rental counter as I'm done and asks the girls behind the counter if they speak Spanish. Of course they don't which - after coming from Tucson where everything was almost in Spanish FIRST - seemed weird to me. I tell them I'll attempt to translate and we start a back and forth with the details. We asked the guy if he has a reservation, if the rental company has the vehicle type he wants...yadda, yadda, yadda. In the end, it was a bust – he specifically wanted a Toyota Sienna…they had none. I realized later, that he didn't need the vehicle because his boys had already gotten one; he was just there to talk to me.
As we ‘round the corner he asks me what I'm doing Tuesday at "ocho de la noche" because if I'm free he'd like to invite me to Caesar's Palace for dinner. I reply "yo no sé" I don't know, I don't know…he speaks to me some more, to much of which I reply, I don't understand. Anyways…we part ways; he does the two cheek kiss thing with the whole "mucho gusto" thing and I'm all like, yeah, yeah, great to meet you too.
Anyways…I really am not sure WHY he's in town and if this is meant to be a one-on-one dinner setting or WHAT! I halfway want to go out of curiosity, but I'd need to take some back-up. There's no way I'm venturing out there by myself!!
Ironically, what was ABSOLUTELY hilarious about the exchange is what happened AFTERward. As I walked away, I say to myself "I GOTTA work on my Spanish" and hop in my rental car. As I turn on the radio all the presets stations are SPANISH stations!! The best part: after inputting the address of the hotel in the GPS and start driving, the voice (Isabel is the name the Garmin Company gave her) starts telling me the directions IN SPANISH (and I couldn't CHANGE it while driving, damned safe mode)!!
Well that's about all, thought I would share! J
Does that count as a {mis} Adventure?{CLOUD}: Sometimes our cockiness can get us into situations that we don't even understand (literally)...
SILVER LINING: ...sometimes those same situations seem to work themselves out, and we can then laugh at ourselves afterall - you've just gotta be able to laugh!
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