Don't Forget to Cross Your "T"s, Dot Your "I"s ...and Accent Your "O"s

Sometimes I take for granted how easy it is for me to communicate. Everything where I live is readable, accessible, and makes sense. I forget that people right next to me, may not be able to read the menu, or what the ingredients are, or the directions to a recipe (notice everything relates to food). It is a real obstacle that I am often aloof to. Which is not fair.

In Barcelona, however, I got a swift kick into the reality that many people face on the daily in the US... that it is reeeeally difficult to communicate in a language that you don't know (even if you took classes in high school all four years)... and also that pronunciation matters.

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To set the scene, we were into Day 2 of our YOLO 2017 Trip in Barcelona and ready to go out for the night. Naturally, everyone was in their pastel painted rooms trying on adorable outfits and putting on their faces. I was done early, because obviously my natural beauty saves me so much time in front of the mirror (this is dripping with sarcasm, FYI). So in my spare time, I decided to do what anyone with an extra few minutes would do in this day and age: go on Facebook!

Now, I am a firm believer in the conspiracy theory that your phone is listening to you. So when one of the sponsored articles popped up about a cool thing to do in Catalonia (aka Barcelona area).... drink wine from a really cool container that has a long funnel-ish spout.... from a distance, I was immediately intrigued. It is a traditional tradition, or so said this video article.

It looked something like this:

credit: Youtube

It looked really fun and since we are all fun people, we tried to find a place that would offer that kind of activity at their bar. I had figured not many places would want newbies attempting to be cool with wine spilling all over their bar, and boy, was I right.

We could barely find one legitimate place that offered porróns to drink from.

What we did end up finding was a secret bar that sold itself as a place where you walk through a wardrobe (much like Narnia) into a room with comfortable furniture. The write-up also claimed that there were no set hours of operation... it opened and closed when the owners felt like it.

I pride myself on being a pretty street smart and savvy gal... but for some reason, this seemed pretty awesome... until we started walking toward the destination and realized it was located in a very small alleyway, and that it was probably someone's personal wardrobe, and it was located in their home, and we may just make it on the 5 o'clock news if we went any further. So we turned around and walked far away.

Back at square one, we decided to be proactive and go inside some REAL bars and ask around. Our bravest traveler who speaks fluent Italian (which is somewhat similar to Spanish), went up to a few bartenders and asked where she could find this fancy decanter, using the word (which was used in the Facebook video, FYI).

The lady behind this one bar, who spoke only in Spanish, was having a really hard time deciphering our impeccably performed charade of a porró (imagine acting out the above video to a stranger who did not understand a word of what we were saying...).

I mean, the five of us were pretending to pour the wine from the decanter into our mouths and all. I am pretty sure we entertained the entire lightly-packed bar,

though she still looked really confused and kept repeating, "Porro?", like she wasn't sure if we actually wanted to do such an authentic/cultural thing.

But we were like... no lady. We're SERIOUS.

We want to try it!

(us being serious about finding porró)

We adamantly stressed (too excessive?) how serious we were about finding it, so God Bless Google Maps, she showed us where to go, turning this way and that along the streets of El Raval.

I was hoping somebody in our group understood / remembered all the different directions, because, let's be honest, I'm the photographer and Good Time Charlie of the group... nothing more.

So off we went.

And to save us time and space, let's just say that we never found the authentic bar with the special decanters. Hashtag bummed.

But that did not stop us from telling our harrowing tale to our tour guide the next day on our wine tour.

We went over all the ups and downs of our quest, and since we loved and trusted our guide so much... we asked him where HE would suggest finding it...

...To which he almost spit out his drink and told us something I will carry with me for the rest of my life....

Basically, we had been pronouncing the word incorrectly. It's true, if you google the word without the accent + spanish translation you get a very different meaning... and explains completely why the bartender was looking at us like we had 9 heads.

So like the 5 most law abiding citizens were meandering through the streets of Barcelona asking for the right thing, with the wrong accent.

Us meandering the streets

I'm sure, a common mistake....

In the end, Simón got us the decanter we asked for and we were able to try it in the comfort of a private wine cellar (yeah, we're bougie)

Moral of the story: be aware of accent marks and abide by them. No excuses.

Also, Facebook captioning does not always use accent marks, so do your homework when on a quest for something authentic in the country of origin....

...it can make ALL the difference :)

skål xx