Éis Éis Baby: Critical Vocabulary for Barcelona

+Vosotros
[you guys, y'all, yinz]
Remember when your Spanish teacher didn't make you learn the vosotos form for verbs and said it was useless? They were lying to you. All I hear here is ¿Cómo estáis? ¿Qué haréis?

+Butifarra/Botifarra
[sausage]
First, you should know another word, "menú del día." This is the Spanish version of a prix-fixe menu, is available at almost every restaurant for around 10€ and includes an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and drink. It's a great idea but almost all the menus here are in Catalán which is a cruel way to make someone learn a language: make them pay and then potentially starve. Yesterday, I saw "butifarras amb salsa d'all i oli" and ordered it because, I figured, what could possibly be wrong about garlic and olive oil. As it turns out, the olive oil was used to cook the giant garlic and pig sausage that landed on my plate. I was not pleased with my choice. Now I'm being haunted because I live next to this place.

+Vale
[okay]
Don't say "okay," "alright," "sure," "gotcha," or "yep," say "vale."

+Nevera
[fridge]
You want to know what they refrigerate here? Nothing. Try to spot the offending items below.

+Bollo
[i don't even know]
Allegedly this word means "lesbian" but I just looked it up and it's a type of pastry. Do what you want with that.

+Izquierda
[left]
In Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, and probably every other city in the world, I lose money on a daily basis due to handedness discrimination. Handedness discrimination is a manually-based offense that is considered especially heinous and affects nearly 10% of the population. Luckily, you swipe your card on the left side in the metros here so I am good to go.

+Montañas/Mar
[mountains/sea]
Since the city's on a tilt, geographically, no one here tells you that anything's north or south, it's toward the mountains or toward the sea or "arriba" or "abajo."

+Segundo Piso
[2nd floor]
Oh, you thought living on the second floor meant you only had to walk up one flight of stairs? WRONG. The first floor are shops, the second floor is "principal," the third floor is the first floor, and the fourth floor is the second floor. This is probably why everyone is skinny.

+Clara
Why don't we have this in the U.S.? It's a drink that's 1/2 lemon soda and 1/2 beer and 2/2 delicious. Other drink words your should know are botellón, horchata, and cubata. Botellón is where you stand on a street corner and share a bottle/giant juice box of wine. Horchata is a weird but really nice drink made out of somekindof nuts that would be really great with a soft pretzle if they sold those here. Cubata just means a mixed drink but each part comes separately. This is good because a) you know exactly how much you have b) you get a bottle of juice or soda to share with your friend c) if your bartender is a jerk, they can't do the jerk thing where they turn around and fill up the entire glass with sour mix and charge you for a real drink. See below for two-drink excitement.

+Otro
[other]
According to my Spanish teacher, the number one way to scream "I'm American" is to say "el otro" instead of just "otro." Other ways of being American include: going to La Ovella Negra, tipping, and not wearing a scarf.