Chloe had her Spanish teacher help her with a letter to her first host family. Normally, I would spend way too much time on that sort of letter, worrying about getting every word just right, have I conveyed what I mean? are there any nuances that can be misinterpreted? does it make me sound like an idiot? Kind of strange to send off such a letter and have no idea what it says. Literally, one sentence reads, “I expect to hear from you soon.” That to me sounds like a demand, when what Chloe is saying is, “I hope to hear from you soon.” But I have no way of knowing if that subtle difference has any meaning in Spanish.
She sent the letter along with some postcards of our local area, a Washington lapel pin with a ferry on it, and a Seattle key chain. We were going to include some photos, but forgot, of course, so we’ll have to remember that for next time. Sure hope they answer and provide an e-mail address. [Note to Rotary: always ask for an e-mail address. All we have to go on for contact information is the guarantee form, and there’s no line for an e-mail address – time to revise the form.]
For the letter, I used the address on the guarantee form and the one on the passport copy. Earlier, when searching maps for the school and the residence, I found post codes, so I hope they were right because that’s what I used. I wasn’t sure of the postal addressing convention in Spain, so did some searching. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it should be, but I finally found Frank’s Compulsive Guide to Postal Addresses: Effective addressing for international mail. Wow – way more information than I thought existed for all things internationally postal.
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