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Austin saying Lo Siento in Barcelona, Spain #90

Closed freddydrew closed 8 months ago

freddydrew commented 10 months ago

If you've read earlier posts you know that I love BMX. It's difficult to describe what I feel when doing tricks with my friends on BMX bikes. Seeing the green grass at Shea for a Mets day game was like spring in my heart and came pretty close. BMX does this thing where it challenges me and gives me the opportunity to go to bed a stronger person than when I woke up. I'm sure my friends have their own way of talking about it. The important thing for this post is understanding that this love is the reason a bunch of us bought plane tickets to Barcelona, Spain. We went to ride. The city is know for it's BMX street riding spots. What's a spot? There's a very deep, long answer to this question and some BMX riders can't avoid getting philosophical in their response. For the sake of keeping it simple, we'll say it's an obstacle or thing on which a bike trick is done. It could be a handrail, a staircase, a bent pole, or a park bench. Anyways, we buy tickets to go for a few weeks during the summer. None of us speak Spanish. Our phrase of choice became lo siento, as we often found ourselves in people's way or being confused at their expense.

Looking back, we didn't have a sense of the true feeling that the phrase conveyed, we only understood the translation that google had given us, so we used it for everything from "sorry I'm in your way", "sorry I cut you off", and "excuse me". One time in the morning we were all with our bikes standing on the sidewalk in front of our apartment, planning where to get coffee and where we'd go riding first. A woman was walking toward us so my friend Austin stepped aside to let her pass while saying lo siento, as if to say "oh excuse me, I'll get out of your way". She turned around and kind of flapped her arms like "well what am I supposed to do, you guys are in the way". I think she thought Austin said it in a rude way as if to express his annoyance for having to move for her. Austin and I were the only ones that noticed this, as everyone else was busy in a huddle looking at google maps. We were so confused and laughed. We looked at her, than at each other, and started cracking up in the confusion. I googled it and read that this phrase was more for showing signs of sympathy or condolences in some way. Considering that, she likely thought it was said in a "sorry to have disturbed you your highness" kind of way. It's hilarious to me now because I know better and will never it that way. Austin knows too of course. We enjoyed our trip so much that we returned to Barcelona a few months later with a different group of friends. On that trip he met a girl, fell in love, and now lives there with her. That story is for another time. Thanks buddy for saying that to a stranger, I learned something: learning a language is all about getting to know the feeling of it, not the translation.