Italiano or Castellano?

My Spanish (or Castellano as it’s called here) is mostly Italian, but people are nice enough to let me think I'm speaking to them in Castellano. Today over lunch, Italian was not helping me much.

Lesson 1: It started when I had yet another conversation about therapists—supposedly Buenos Aires has the highest number of psychoanalysts per capita in the world, something like one therapist for every thirty-five porteños. Pretty much everyone thinks I need to get one of my own.

I explained to my friend that I would want a therapist that speaks English and preferably comes from my culture because it would be easier for me to express myself. In Italian, express is esprimere, so I said esprimir. My friend seemed to understand me, but I wasn’t sure.

“Is that how you say it in Castellano?” I asked. She assured me that it was correct but added that it was more something from the Interior and not Buenos Aires and a little different than what I said: “sacar el jugo,” she explained was the appropriate expression.

“Take the juice out? That’s odd,” I thought. Turns out esprimir in Spanish means to juice, as in to juice an orange. But it doesn’t have a thing to do with expressing oneself, or does it?

So what did she think I meant? I need a therapist who speaks English so I can take the juice out. Of what? So I can get to the good stuff? I’m still not sure, but I’ll keep using it to see what reactions I get.

Lesson 2: The second Italian/Castellano mistake was one I’ve made before. Orto in Italian means garden. In Castellano it means butt. I was talking about salad and how salad here is always fresh right from the garden or right from the butt if you make the mistake of saying orto instead of huerto.

Lesson 3: Maybe the best one yet though was about a week ago at dinner with some people I know well and others I barely know at all. They were trying to fix me up with a friend and wanted to know what kind of guy I’m interested in. I said age wasn’t much of an issue but if the guy is older than me he should still be in good shape. I had a date with an older guy that had trouble standing up.

To stand up in Italian is alzarse. Alzarse in Castellano is "to get it up." You can imagine the confusion and the laughs. In the end, it would be good if the guy could do both.