1055 days ago…

This post has been in edit for 1055 days. It was one week until my first Camino. I was in full on panic mode. 

Now that I am in full on panic mode being less than a week away from departure, I feel as though I’m not prepared. I understand that this is a normal pre-Camino stage. I’m mainly concerned that I haven’t been studying Spanish… well, I did start at the beginning of April. Sort of? I kept thinking, “I know Italian, it’s close enough.” Right?

It’s really not.

French, I took French in high school, not Spanish. Have I ever gone to France? I think I passed through it on my way to London once on the Eurostar. I wanted to go to France and have a coffee and some escargot. Not together. What did I need of Spanish? Heck, I took French and Italian in Uni. Never once did I ever imagine I’d need Spanish. High school Spanish, whodathunk I’d regret not taking it?

Spanish? Me?

In the past year I have thought about trying to learn the language of the country I was going to visit a total of three times until I realized I needed to get serious.

The first time, Thom mentioned it to me so we did a little listening of the lessons together.

The second time, Thom tried to get me to listen to it with him on a disk at night to “have our subconscious learn”. Yeah, I laughed, too. It only served to keep us up.

The third time Thom handed me the podcast on disk. I haven’t even tried to listen to them.

Instead, I combined my sudden painful awareness that I wasn’t going to get my iPhone back from Thom during our trip with the need for new tech as I’d washed my Nano with my hiking pants. Hey, those suckers are small. You can’t feel the difference between the separator zip and a skinny iPod Nano in the side thigh pocket until it’s too late. Then… you’re stuck with Ace Frehley on repeat.

No bueno!

I could wax on about how easy it is for me to learn a language (fat lie) having learned French and Italian and some Flemish Dutch, yadda yadda but the fact is the final for Spanish is in less than a week and I’ve been cramming for two weeks when I should have been practicing all year. I really do feel like I’m in high school again.

Add to that my perfectionism (read procrastination) and pressure on myself to learn to ensure that my sweet amazing darling beloved husband is proud of me. And yes, I wanted to surprise him with being proficient because he relies on me to be good at this language thing. As it is, I’ll be able to tell people I am married and together we have four children.

My first stop for language has always been at LiveMocha.com where I have been playing at learning German and … Russian. They’ve improved the program over the years and now have a new partnership with Rosetta Stone. I love the social aspect of helping others learn languages at Live Mocha.

The next stop is listening to the podcasts Coffee Break Spanish. The problem with Coffee Break Spanish is that while I am learning Spanish, I’m also developing a thick Scottish brogue because the presenters are from Escocia. Oi!

And not for nothin’ but…What’s with all the coffee references with learning language? Maybe it’s the “you just need fifteen minutes a day to learn” approach? It does make one

Finally, the Camino boards pointed to this free BBC course Mi Vida Loca which is dead brilliant (there’s those crazy escocia words again).

I have since learned passable Spanish but I still mix it up with Italian. I’m also in far less panic!