The difference between "tocar", "tomar", and "dar", una fiesta, and speaking más español!

On Tuesday in my "conversacíon oral" class I was bored to death while we were practicing how to speak to clerks in stores, ask prices, ask for a dressing room, explain what we want to buy, etc. We were told to partner up and have a dialogue in which the store clerk helps the customer, and then customer is dissatisfied with the service/item/etc and complains to the clerk, and I was with my friend Paige. We have bonded a lot over the past few weeks and I would now consider her a close friend - and all my close friends know I'm a liiiiittle bit weird :) so naturally to spice up the super boring class I pretended to be a porn star (sorry mom and dad, family, etc - it was a joke!) shopping for clothing for my next film. I had no idea we were going to be asked to repeat our conversation shortly thereafter in front of the whole class as an example. So after we were instructed to present I quickly started in on the conversation skipping over the background of my character, and went straight to asking Paige, the store clerk, about underwear and bras available in her store.

We bantered back and forth, and then when I was pretending to try on the items I angrily exclaimed that I found a hole in the underwear, or I thought I did anyway. After that it got a little awkward - when I actually shouted "¿Por qúe tú tocame los calzoncillos con un rasgón?!"
What I meant to say was "why did you give me underwear with a hole?!" - What I actually said was "Why did you touch my boxers with a hole?!"
Then to correct myself I changed "tocame" (which it tocar: to touch) to "tomame"(tomar: to drink/to take - in this case, to take) and loudly again said, "¿Por qúe tú tomame los calzoncillos con un rasgón?!"...which is really no better since I said "Why did you take my boxers with a hole?!"

Third time is the charm, as I FINALLY used the right word "dame" (dar: to give) and while the whole class was laughing said "¿Por qúe tú dame los calzoncillos con un rasgón?!" "Why did you give me boxers with a hole?!"
Never did get the whole "underwear" (ropa interior or bragas) versus "boxers" (calzoncillos) thing until my Professor corrected me in front of the whole class...

It's lucky for me I'm not easily embarrassed :) - and I can promise that I will NEVER again forget the correct definitions of the words "tocar" "tomar" or "dar" again.

Oh, and Paige and I accidently matched yesterday, aren't we precious? ;)

Yesterday (Wednesday) I went to a birthday party for my friend from Spain, Hugo. In our program we were assigned partners who want to learn English, so they speak English to us, and we speak Spanish to them, and then help each other learn new things, etc. Hugo is the partner of both me and my friend Erika in the group, so we decided it would be nice to celebrate his birthday with him, some other people from our program, and some other friends of Hugo's. We went just outside the city to a "pueblo" or small town, basically a suburb to his house to have a delicious lunch. It was absolutely gorgeous, and we had a wonderful time meeting new friends and celebrating!

We also went to the beach there, and to the house of another person in our program who is learning English, Oscar, who's parents own a dairy farm. I got to milk a cow!! So awesome :)

My lovely friend Erika

Meeeeee

Erika, our partner/friend Hugo, and me

Alex, me, and Erika

Fun fact: tons of tourist souvenirs here revolve around cows because Santander/Cantabria has it's very own kind of cow - although I don't know exactly what type that is, I will find out!

Also, yesterday Hector/Mauricio, who's given name is Cedric (as referenced in my first blog post) met another Cedric yesterday! This Cedric is Dutch and speaks 5 languages. Yes, 5! English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and German. ¡Lo impresionante! My friends and I were feeling a liiiiittle inferior just struggling to speak 2, but nonetheless, Hector/Mauricio/Cedric was very pleased to meet a friend with the same name.

Today I went to school, came home and ate lunch, napped, then went to el centro to plan some trips with my friends, and then my host mom asked me to show a French girl around who is staying in Santander with one of her good friends for the week. I nervously accepted - because my backup plan is always English when Spanish fails me...and I don't know anything but "oui" and "merci" in French if I get stuck and don't know a word in Spanish.
It was great though! Her name is Justine, and she's 18, and we walked around near the beach for the better part of an hour and were able to speak Spanish to each other the entire time and get to know each other! I don't care what anyone says, that's AMAZING. I relied solely on my Spanish to get to know someone, and was able to :) it's so exciting, and I'm so proud! haha.  We might meet up tomorrow again so I can introduce her to some of my friends and show her around town more.

Exciting times here in España :) ¡Que tengan una semana maravillosa! xoxo