Close encuentros with Spanish

I've heard many people say that when you're learning a language, you should realize that, unless you have a Rainman-style of learning languages, you will probably have the verbal capacity of a toddler for quite a while. Based on the conversations I've had over the past few days, I'm guessing I'm somewhere between 5 and 6 years old right now.

While humbling (to say the least), it certainly makes for some interesting conversations! Here are some of the things I've learned while trying to speak in Spanish so far:

1. Taxi drivers (taxistas) speak really, really fast. Like really fast. I got in the middle of a conversation with a local driver this morning while I was trying to find this great local farmer's market ( feria) and quickly realized that I was catching about every third word. Kind of. That's when I pulled out the "muchas gracias señor" and a big smile and tried to exit the conversation as gracefully as possible.

2. The waitress at the hotel restaurant loves Castro's Bar and recommended it to us this morning over our huevos fritos y patatas as the "best place in San Jose to go dancing." Although at first, I thought she said "Encuentro" instead of "Castro's," and I would've ended up taking us to a city about 115 kilometers (71.5 miles) away from our hotel. Nice.

3. This morning, while Brian was practicing Spanish vocab with an app on his iPhone, we discovered that we can quickly translate English children's songs into their Spanish equivalents to practice. For example, if you were in our hotel room this morning, you would have heard me singing this (with the motions of course!):

Cabezas, hombros, rodillas y dedos, rodillas y dedos,
Cabezas, hombros, rodillas y dedos, rodillas y dedos,
Ojos, orejas, bocas y nariz
Cabezas, hombros, rodillas y dedos, rodillas y dedos.

Anyone with children want to guess which popular song that is?
Hint: Check out this video for the answer.

And for those of you who want to learn along with us, here's a great resource we've been listening to - News in Slow Spanish. The name says it all!