Today we have a guestblog from one of our students Erin. She did our Crash Course and tells about her experience:
I arrived in Buenos Aires on the weekend and after a day of pointing at menus and responding “no entiendo” to waiters I knew I needed to learn some Spanish. I decide to take the food crash course offered through Expanish. It isn’t your typical Spanish language course focused on grammar and sentence structure. Instead it was 2 hours of the essentials of how to order what you want – whether it was making sure your food is vegetarian or your beef is cooked medium rare. I was already taking Spanish lessons through Expanish so I just wanted to get a quick overview of the basics and not look like a complete fool in the restaurants and grocery stores.
Learn how to order food in Spanish
During the class, we went through key phrases necessary for eating in a restaurant. This included how to order, tell the waiter that there is a problem with your food and ask for the bill (very important as you will almost never get the bill without asking for it). We then covered various food related vocabulary focusing on common foods and Argentinian specialties from duce de leche to beef to mate. The teacher even recommended a nearby cafe for dulce de leche filled churros that are dipped in chocolate (they are just as delicious as they sound).
A churro with Dulce de Leche
The class only had two other students in it and was very relaxed. The small group setting made it easy to ask questions specific to my dietary needs and culinary interests. As it was not your typical spanish class you were allowed to speak in English. This was helpful to make sure you were asking the right questions. The only snag during our class was trying to explain what a flan was to the German student (although I cannot even explain this in English). Overall, I thought the class was worthwhile and have found the class handout with the vocabulary and common questions very useful. I look forward trying the other crash courses that expanish offers.
