I have been thinking about this ever since I got here -- how successfully getting around in Spanish is not just a question of ...
...vocabulary (including country-specific terms that even native speakers have trouble with)
...grammar
...rapid speech
...and local accents
... but also of what you expect to see.
For example, when I first went shopping and bought a small electrical device, I could not decipher "you have to take this over to the security guard to get a stamp on your receipt for the garant铆a" [which I am guessing is something like a warranty?] because I was not expecting any more steps in the process.
That was one of my blank spots. Now in Puerto Plata I decided I wanted to try out the intra-city bus routes, and it was hysterical (well, in retrospect anyway).
Q: Can you tell me where the guagua Ruta F passes by? [haha, I'm thinking I'm so clever because I already know there are no actual bus stops, you just have to find the street it will pass down ... little did I know the confusion was just beginning]
A: Just take a cab.
Q: I'd like to try out the bus.
A: Where do you want to go?
Q: I just want to ride the bus and see where it goes.
A1: Where do you want to go?
A2: I don't know where it passes by.
A3: I know but my answer is wrong.
A4: [long complicated rapid answer with gestures that I guess at and intepret wrong]
A5: the good news is I know what I'm talking about and can explain to the Spanish-challenged; the bad news is it's about a mile away
Then at the end of a route, you can't necessarily stay on the bus to come back because the driver might be having a mandatory pause.... so "do I pay again here to return?" doesn't have an easy answer either.
And then the driver takes you three blocks out of his way and you don't know why and later you realize he was just trying to show you a nice place to hang out for awhile so you don't waste the trip.
Then route F turns into route C when the driver flips a card in the front window. And he may flag down a different bus for you that he thinks will get you home faster. And you have to decide whether you're sufficiently on the same page for him to be right (I guessed yes, and he was).
BTW the advice on this in the tourist books and blogs is pure baloney. I don't think there's any way to learn it except jump right in and make a fool of yourself. The inter-city guaguas look easier and more useful to foreigners; that's next week's goal.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend riding the intra-city guaguas unless you enjoy it (though you do see a lot, and you can't beat 30-40 DOP price!). (Also it is MUCH more complicated in Santo Domingo; I got so lost there that I swore off trying it there for now. Puerto Plata is more manageable.) The larger point is all those "unknown unknowns" -- not just in buying an electric kettle or riding a guagua but in anything you might do -- no matter how much you try to keep an open mind you are going to trip up at some point -- and how there's a lot more to getting around in Dominican Spanish than you can ever get from a textbook or even from YouTube. You're not just translating words, you're translating whole realities. So enjoy.
