face to face

I have to admit, I was a little upset when the cute guy at my work got moved to the morning shift, but in the end, I think it worked out for the better. He has been replaced with a girl from Spain, Cristina, who has moved here to be with her boyfriend. Last week, she asked me the best question in the world, one that I have been waiting for, second only to "do you want me to give you some money?" and that was if I wanted to do what she called a face-to-face, which I came to understand is a language exchange.

I was so excited, because I have been looking for a language exchange partner and my search has been fruitless. Well, I did meet with a boy a few weeks ago, but his English was really good so we ended up speaking that the whole time. And I thought he was pretty cute too, which makes it harder to put yourself out there, make mistakes and sound like a fool. Anyway, Cristina lived in Ireland for a while so her English is not bad, but she's similar to me in that we are a both self-described lazy learners. In order to motivate each other, we decided to meet everyday and spend an hour speaking each language. Because we are both expats and have nothing better to do, we got right to it and started the very next day. It was fabulous. She is patient and smart and explains things very clearly. It's a great set-up because there's no money involved. We're just going to take turns hosting each other and cooking. It's also amazing because we can continue practicing together during work. I am so pleased with this I cannot even tell you. I am really happy to have something to fill my days and I know a whole month of this will be really great for my language.