By bmnobles
One of my most memorable moments of my abroad life is the moment I realized I really can speak Spanish. I was sitting at a restaurant with my GW Madrid group in Barcelona and we had asked the waitor for pitchers of water. The waitor returned to our table with individual bottles of water for each of us. Things like this happened to us a lot because Spaniards assumed that since we're American that 1) we have tons of money to just blow on random things and 2) that we wouldn't have the courage or the skills to correct him.
Thus, when he brought back the bottles of water, without thinking twice, I said "perdona, pedimos harás de agua del grifo, no botellas individuas" (excuse me, we ordered pitchers of tap water not individual bottles). The man seemed confused that I even knew the difference and then proceeded to try to convince me that the tap water in Barcelona is undrinkable. However, eventually I won the argument and he brought us what we wanted and had asked for. It was in that moment that I realized, even if I got nothing else out of this experience- I can speak Spanish. While I'm not fully fluent, I can speak Spanish well enough to live in Spain for four and half months and argue with a native confidently. That was by far one of my biggest successes since being here. From that moment on I have never once questioned my Spanish-speaking abilities and never shy away from conversation. I will miss speaking spanish the most once I leave Spain, and I hope that it's a skill I never lose.
Para siempre España, voy a echarte de menos. Besos.