y

A momentous thing happened yesterday as I walked through downtown El Paso. I was on my way to exchange dollars into British pounds for next week's trip to Scotland, since the bank teller in Van Horn got a panicky look on her face when I asked about it and had to call the main branch in Lubbock to learn that's "something that can only be done in El Paso. "

As I passed the Mexican fruit popscicle vendor offering flavors such as cantelope, watermelon, tamarind, cucumber and chile, mango, pineapple and pistachio, I started listening to my internal dialogue, those mundane snippets of thoughts that don't usually amount to much. I heard it in my head: I said "y" instead of "and."

I have not been studying the language, though I do have a dictionary and the Spanish version of "magnetic poetry" for the fridge. Mostly, I've just been listening to people talk. After almost two years here, I'm starting to think in Spanish!