Laura- Nah, I'm not going to murder her. Actually, Craig calls me Shully too, I can't remember which one of you started it, but the other one followed. I don't mind Shully, it's actually quite amusing, but only you and Craig are allowed to call me that! Lol.
As for the Catalan- not majorly, it's a mix between Spanish, French and Portoguese, there are a lot of things I can understand. The problem is reading and writing- what I love about Spanish is that the vowels sound just like they're supposed to sound, no exceptions. In Catalan, same as in french, sometimes the E sounds like A and sometimes like E, the O sounds like O and U and so on, you never know what to expect and how the hell the word is spelled. It's not a pretty language but it's incredibly sexy! And there's some great catalan music out there. Since it's not widely spoken very few people get to hear it and that's a real shame. I'm not sure but I think we have a pretty similar taste in music (what music do you like?), so I could send you some stuff. I'm trying to make the world know this music, the Catalans should honour me!
Lindsay- Of course you're excited, I was in Spain two months ago and I loved hearing Spanish everywhere! It's absolutely amazing being abroad when you can understand the language, things are so much easier and people are so much nicer. I realised I could actually talk to people and find my way when I'm lost and it's been fantastic. The funny thing is that my parents kept looking at me all shocked and confused. I met a good friend there and we've been spending some time together and my parents stayed there alone. My mum said they didn't know how to communicate and felt totally lost without me! LOL. Trust me, it's an experience- when you realise you have no choice but speaking Spanish that's what you're going to do, simply because no one speaks English. If you want some help or just a fun practice, you know where to find me.
I live in Israel, we all make mistakes. I'll get out of here one day, I hope!
Kendra - I second that.