Coffee and a communication comedy

I´m not sure why, but most of the places outside the US that I´ve been to drink instant coffee at home. People don´t have coffee makers to make American drip coffee, French presses, espresso makers, etc. Even in places that produce coffee (Mexico, Panamá) people in their homes drink instant. I don´t mean to sound harsh, but WHY?! Luckily, I knew this trend going in, so I brought my own stovetop espresso maker from home. I had to go to two different grocery stores before I found non-instant coffee though.

So after I had acquired my non-instant coffee, I was studying the stove at the apartment. I asked my roommate ¨¿Funciona la estufa?¨ To me ¨estufa¨ means ¨stove.¨ He started into this whole big thing about how it works but it´s super expensive so he never turns it on... So I´m thinking, ¨Man, I´m destined to drink instant coffee for a year.¨ So I said, ¨¿Cómo cocinas, entonces?¨ (¨How do you cook, then?¨) Then he realized I was talking about the stove, which here they call the ¨cocina¨ which is the word I learned for ¨kitchen¨ which here they call the ¨pieza de cocina.¨ Here the ¨estufa¨ is the furnace, or central heat, which nobody uses.

Everyone seems to have adapted to being cold in the winter, which is fine because it´s not nearly as cold as winter at home (the coldest it gets here is probably just above freezing, but usually at night so far it´s probably been about 10 degrees F warmer than that). People don´t use central heat in their homes. I have adapted to this as well...I just put on extra socks and layers of shirts and sweaters and I drink hot tea at night. On my bed I have several blankets, one of which is down, so I stay quite cozy.