I still cannot speak Spanish

But after this weekend I am sometimes understanding obvious statements and my knowledge of swearing in Spanish is greatly improved. It'll be nice to go to Japanese class where I theoretically can understand it all. There is something ironic about this...

So on Friday I went to ask Javier a question and then we were talking about class when this kid from Brazil, Felipe, calls Javier that he cut his hand while cutting garlic and that it wouldn't stop bleeding. So we go over there and Angel (from Mexico) is also there and so we go to the hospital because Felipe is convinced he needed stitches. I made him put his hand up in the air and by the time we got to the hospital (all of five minutes away) andthe nurse takes the paper towel off his fingers it had sort of stopped. But they put disinfectant on his hand so that was probably worth going to the doctor for. Somewhere along the line Javier waslike, do you want to go for sushi for Olivia's birthday. Olivia is the girlfriend of this guy, Jon, from Spain. She teaches at the German school in Yokohama. I had met her a couple times before but I hadn't really talked to her.

So Jon came to the dorm to get a couple people to take in his car to go pick her up from their house and go to the restaurant while everyone else went by bicycle. Me, this girl from Mexico, Hassibi, and this girl from Egypt, Nora, went with him. At the sushi restaurant (which had the sushi going around on a conveyor belt) they put us in two huge booths (there were 8 people in ours and this Korean girl and I were the only ones at the table who did not speak Spanish. All the other non-spanish speakers were at the other table). I wasn't very hungry since it was like 10 pm by this point and I had eaten pasta with cheese. But I had some tuna sushi, one that had tempura shrimp in a roll, a hamburger sushi (definately was not a beef hamburger, it tasted like spam almost) and one that was egg with a little rice stuck inside. After eating we all went to a Kurt Cobain (from Nirvana) themed bar that is right near the station. So that was fun.

Saturday there was a plan to go to the largest club in Tokyo (which everyone was calling a disco in English, but it was not a disco-disco). Amazingly the plan was followed in a timely fashion (the plan on Friday was to eat at the sushi place at about 7:30 or 8) and Jesse (Canada), Francisco (Cuba), Nora and I left at 10:45 to take the train there, while Javier, Jon, Olivia, Jose (Costa Rica) and one of Olivia's friends came in Jon's car later. We got there a bit before them. Francisco was very funny on the train, he insisted that Nora and I sit between him and Jesse for protection. I am not sure how much protection we needed in a mostly empty train. But it was nice of him. When we were waiting outside for them to get there we noticed that the air smelled really nice and tree-y... it was in a really industrial area and there were several wood warehouses and it smelled like cedar. Much nicer than the rest of Japan that smells like smog and dust.

The club was quite large, there was one room that was hip-hop rapstuff, but later it changed to more 80's music, a really big no smoking room with techno (but the strobe light was a bit too strobey to stay there for more than 15 minutes at a time) and an outside deck with a very small pool (no one was in it) that had reggae. A bunch of us had been outside for a while and then went back in and were inside for I don't know how long, but when Javier and I went back outside it was getting light out.

Again with the Latino machismo, they insisted that Nora and I go back in the car with Jon and Olivia and Olivia's friend and they would wait for the train to start again (but it was like 5:30 so there was only 15 minutes or so till it started). So we got back at 6. It was scary being in the car for the first 5 minutes on Friday but on the way back this morning it was making me miss America, just being in a car and listening to radio in English (the army base in Yokohama broadcasts cnn and music).

I took a nap. Before I had realized all these other plans were happening I had asked Arlen and Diana if I could go with them to church because it was ascension thursday. So I went in Spanish to church with them. I liked it better than the American catholic church, I think, but I didn't really understand anything that was spoken, but looking at the book and seeing the words helped. I never realized how different Spanish looks than sounds. It was very odd, the music part of the book just had the words and no notes. They explained this is because they always use the same songs and no one can read music. I guess they used to be afraid to talk to me because they didn't want to make mistakes in English, but now they seem to like asking me questions. They came to the bar on Friday and I talked to them a lot there too.

I bought some bacon and green beans and had that for dinner. It was yummy.