SpanishPod101.com Blog

An American friend of mine would constantly whack her boyfriend on the shoulder and say, “Get your mind out of the gutter!” You see, her boyfriend was an aficionado at “albures”. Anyone learning Spanish and planning on traveling to Mexico needs to be forewarned about them, especially if you are a woman.

You see in Mexico, anything at any given moment could have two meanings. I remember one time when I was traveling by myself in some city in southern Mexico when I got lost. It started to rain and I went deeper and deeper into some unknown “colonia” (neighborhood). I hailed a taxi and gave him my hotel’s address. I made some silly comment about the rain to which the “taxista” (taxi driver) replied, “¿Te gusta mojarte?” (You like to get wet?) I didn’t get it at the time. It wasn’t until a year or so later that I realized what had really happened.

I had already been living in Mexico for quite some time and spoke Spanish fluently before I realized that I couldn’t walk into a store and ask the attendant, “¿Tiene ustéd huevos?” unless I wanted to become the butt of the joke. The word “huevos” in Spanish, especially among men, refers to testicles. Instead of questioning a man’s manliness, most women ask, “¿Tiene blanquillos?” Now that’s something they don’t teach you in Spanish class.

For my husband’s family, New Year’s is generally a family event. We all get together for enormous quantities of food, drink, music and talk. Children run wild, “comadres chismean” (ladies gossip), the men play poker and we all drink and are merry until the clock strikes midnight, at which point we eat 12 grapes so that our 12 wishes for the New Year will materialize.

This year is different. This year we did anything but the traditional familial gathering. We went to Playa del Carmen to stay with my “cuñado” (brother-in-law). An apartment that may cost 1000 pesos in other parts of the Republic, like in Xalapa for example, will cost around 4500 pesos in Playa. So my husband, his daughter, our baby, my “suegra” (mother-in-law), my “cuñado” and his partner all settled into inflatable mattresses in a one-room apartment to ring in the New Year.

Traditionally, families sit down to dinner at midnight, although they start celebrating sometime in the afternoon. This time we made it until 9 and then gathered up our 12 grapes to head out to “La quinta avenida” (Fifth Avenue).

I must say, all seemed eerily calm, until, that is, we made it to the hot spots where foreigners from all over the globe were congregated, drinking, dancing and partying the year away. Here, playing tourist for the evening, we ate our twelve grapes and chimed in to the shouts of “Happy New Year!” and “¡Feliz Año Nuevo!”