Spanish language

The weirdest thing about the whole trip to Spain was being back in that moment when you are horrified about speaking: it's been ages since I've gone somewhere where I only have a tenuous linguistic grip but there I was getting all embarassed and overwhelmed even when i knew exactly what to say and how to say it! It was compounded by having someone else around who I could just say to "oh, can you tell them blah blah blah"...I did crack out a bit of spanish here and there and realised that my native linguistic creativity (or tomfoolery) could have buoyed me along to where I wanted to go...it was the lulling calm of the place that made me lazy...or was it fear? It's always good to be rocketed back to this place from time to time coz it helps you, as a teacher of languages, revisit that monumental horror that many students face in trying to get on in a language...
Here are my favourite new expressions in Spanish:

• Jesus! which you say when someone sneezes
• Flacco, meaning a stick thin bean pole (mmm, guess who that referred to)

Some interesting linguisticky things:

• the shortened form of the greetings where Bueno for Buenos dias and Buena for Buenas tardes which is not the expected linguistic beheading...unusual, as the content word is chopped off while the arguably empty word remains...it's still showing gender so the greetings are distinct....
• The rhythmic timing of Spanish is very different from Italian and I feel for me it's insurmountable
• Spanish is very nasal which suits an Aussie