Real mom meets temporary Spanish mom

I was blessed with a two week spring break to do whatever I pleased and not be in school, and I was also very fortunate to have my mom visit for the entire duration of the break. She flew into Bilbao and the first thing I did was bring my real mom to my host mom, Carmen's house.

My mom not knowing any Spanish, made it an interesting job being a translator, but exhausting might be a better word. Overall we stayed in my house with my host family for six days, a few days in the beginning and few days at the end. Carmen would carry on these lengthy conversations with my mom and I would be stuck translating every single sentance. Sometimes she would even be giving us mini history lessons about Spain as well. By the last day I was barely translating anything and I could see my mom turning her head to me, looking for the translation, but I would just nod and let Carmen knew I understood.

The job of a translator is tiring, and because when I listen I understand all of it, some things seem pointless to translate into English because it seems simple enough to understand. In reality that's not the case, people can pick up words, but it's harder to understand the meaning or the substance of a conversation. 

It was actually very humorous and sweet... by the last days Carmen and my mom had gotten to know each other and Carmen would tell my mom that because they were both women they could understand each other. Language didn't always stand in their way, some things were just understood without translation.

Regardless, we had an amazing time traveling around Spain. I played translator/speaker/navigator during our travels, but we were also able to use a lot of English. In some places if I was stumbling with my Spanish people would just start speaking English to me. I tried not to take it personally.

Soon I'll only being hearing English, wondering where all the Spanish went!