They've moved into a fancy new house there, because the house prices are cheaper than in Utrecht. He is probably quite bored by now because he finds it difficult to get work due to his trouble mastering Dutch. Prior to this they were in Austria where he went through the same ('tedious' he says) rigmarole learning German and having people squinting with a half-tilted head, saying: Tut mir leid, aber ich verstehe Sie nicht. Was meinen Sie? I've actually heard him speak when I spoke to his wife in German and I understood him; I blame the Austrians. So when they moved here the whole thing started again and it doesn't help that his wife quickly learned Dutch, but also speaks fluent Spanish at home.
Some years ago now I was supposed to be learning Spanish, but I dilly-dallied. Then I had to take on a second temporary job during the pandemic. Prior to that he was assisting me greatly with materials and real-life exchanges and an introduction to a lot of Spanish-speaking people. Obviously the pandemic wiped this out. When we met in Amersfoort he greeted me in Spanish and had already sent me a Spanish text message telling me where he would be waiting. After about a minute of poor participation on my part I had to confess that I had not studied in equal measure to the period from when I had announced my intentions. So we...defaulted to English. His English is pretty good when listening, but can be somewhat broken in production. I never squint with a half-tilted head. Since he speaks more of it than I do Spanish I can hardly criticise. He also speaks Basque because he's from there.
During the evening after we'd been to a local brasserie we were on his back patio eating tapas and having a last beer. His wife is visiting Austria, so he was missing her. He started telling me about how he first met her when they both worked in a hotel in Spain, but had trouble expressing it. So I said 'do it Spanish'. He spoke slowly and deliberately and I can't say I understood everything, but I understood more-or-less! I'm re-constructing from memory, so forgive my errors, but at one moment he said:
Desde el momento en que toqué accidentalmente su dedo, supe que tenía una conexion con esta mujer...como dos almas en unión...
Which I thought was lovely. It reminded me of the Plato theory of love: two half-souls made from a divided whole, which then find each other and reunite. For the short remainder of the evening we split between English and Spanish sentences as we cleared up and I made my way to the guest bedroom. Next day there was some more exchange, but the gears didn't mesh quite so well as the previous evening, which was a pity. Nevertheless it's a good feeling and understanding a person in a language where they can express themselves more fully is a moment of clarity.