The Alhambra in Granada, Spain

The Alhambra looms over Granada and is Spain’s primary tourist attraction.  This fortress has a long and rich Moorish and Christian history far beyond the scope of this blog.  We are history buffs and indulged in a lot of reading before ever seeing it first hand, for us, the place is magical.  If you plan to visit, familiarize yourself with at least a bit of the history of the Alhambra and the related history of Granada before you arrive, it will be time well spent.

On our first weekend in Granada we decided to visit the Alhambra with two of our TEFL mates (yes, one was an Aussie).  We had heard that it was best to either purchase tickets on line, in a local bookstore or at certain ATMs but we figured that early on a Sunday morning, in Spain, we should be able to easily purchase the tickets we desired.  Oooops, definitely purchase them in advance!

We hiked the very steep hill from Plaza Nueva to the Alhambra and found that a small part of the lower citadel is open to the public, a very small part.  We went in and by 11, after seeing all there was to be seen in about 30 minutes we found ourselves at the ticket counter.  Here we discovered there are two types of tickets; one ticket is for the lower citadel and includes the summer palace and gardens or “Generalife” and the other includes access to the Nasrid dynasty palaces.  The Generalife/lower citadel tickets cost 6 euro and the Nasrid palaces tickets were 12.  You could buy them both together for 16 euro.

Unfortunately, the Nasrid palaces tickets are much in demand and tour groups buy them up quickly or in advance.  These tickets provide a limited number of people access at various but specific times.  If you are not present for your entry time and miss your group’s entry, well too bad.  The first time available for purchase that day was 3:30 and we decided not to wait and wander around for more than four hours and that we’d save the Nasrid palaces for another day.  We purchased the Generalife/lower citadel tickets.

Figuring to start at the top and work our way down we climbed to the Palacio Generalife which was the Nasrid dynasty’s summer palace.  This summer palace is located a significant distance up the hill from the lower citadel and features seemingly endless gardens redolent with colorful, sweet smelling flowers and the sound of constantly running water. 

From the Generalife one can look down upon the lower citadel and view its many towers over the terraced gardens.  The city of Granada lies in the distance and the entire palace conveys a sense of tranquility and quiet contemplation.

The four of us wandered aimlessly through the gardens and simply enjoyed the fountains, pools, manicured hedges, pathways and views from the gardens and the palace windows.

 A long, curved, tree lined path led down through the palace gardens, across an arched bridge over what can only be called a moat, into the outer passageways of the lower citadel.

The walls of the lower citadel contain many breathtaking viewpoints of the Albayzin on the hill across the river Darro, of the city of Granada and of the cultivated plains beyond.

Many of the towers placed in strategic points along the walls are accessible and with a little patience, one can take advantage of a photo opportunity without other tourists in the frame.

Inside the walls, the lower citadel contains the remains of the barracks for the palace guard, a myriad of staircases linking towers to defensible areas along the walls and, of course, more gardens and fountains.  There is a basilica whose interior can be viewed when services are not being held and the huge palace of Carlos V can also be accessed with this type of ticket

The palace of Carlos V is square on the outside and circular on the inside, is two very tall stories high and has an impressive inner courtyard.  It contains a small historical museum and on this day had an exhibition of Monet paintings, for an additional entry fee of course.

By 1:30, after 3 hours of wandering this incredible structure we had had enough and exited to the forested path leading down to Plaza Nueva, the starting point for any excursion to the Alhambra.  We celebrated our tour with pints of Murphys Red and a fry up for breakfast at our favorite local Irish pub; but that’s another story. 

The TEFL Experience

We have both been away from a structured educational system for many, many years.  Starting formal classes Monday morning was a mixed bag of emotions: some excitement, tempered by some apprehension and a lot of curiosity.  Being naturally early risers, we had plenty of time to kill.  We discovered that the one coffee shop that we were aware of near the school did not open its doors ‘til after the owner dropped his daughter off at school, sometime between nine and nine thirty, too late for a quick cup before class.  We were stuck with Nescafe.

On day one of the TEFL course we were given course books with detailed narrative about the requirements and expectations, essentially a book length syllabus.  If you are in a university program this course is worth 6 hours of graduate level credit.  Can you imagine 6 hours of graduate level classes, homework, projects and exams, plus student teaching in just 4 weeks?  The schedule was grueling to say the least, and by the end of the first day we knew it was going to be a challenge.

Our schedule essentially went from nine in the morning until 9 in the evening with one coffee break and two meal breaks.  Each individual had different times for teaching and class prep but if you were not teaching in the evening you would be evaluating the other students or prepping for your next class, so there really was almost no “down time”.  We had four instructors and they all made it clear that they were there to teach but that we had to do the work and be very self-directed, there would be no hand holding on this course!  Furthermore, you could not expect to pass just because you had paid a lot of money to be there.  You either passed based solely upon your own merit, or you didn’t.

The first week started out with a full schedule of classes during the day and with our evenings spent practicing our evaluation techniques while our instructors taught English classes to native Spanish speaking students.   Our DOS (Dorector of Studies) Dylan had many years of experience and is one of the best teachers we have had the pleasure of observing. The TEFL program is designed to put you in front of students, teaching, as soon as possible and to have you teach at each of five levels of classes offered from Beginners to Upper Intermediate.   Each class had two “trainee” teachers assigned, one for the first hour and one for the second.  The lessons were dovetailed to fit together and the two teachers were expected to work on the lesson prep together.  Because they put you in front of students so quickly, at times you will not yet have had all the classes that you need in order to know how to prepare a particular lesson or the classroom management tools you will use as a teacher, but ready or not, you teach.

The instructors are aware of this and so in your first teaching prep they are much more involved and give lots of assistance and advice, then they purposefully give less and less assistance with each subsequent lesson.  During the day when we were not teaching or prepping to teach, our days were filled with classes on teaching methodology, linguistics, phonology, classroom management, student assessment and a myriad of other related topics.  We were expected to complete three individual term projects simultaneously as well. 

The first project was a Foreign Language Journal.  During that first week we had three classes in the Hungarian language taught by a professor who never used a single word of English.  We had to evaluate how he taught and how we learned.  Evaluation sheets and a project paper were due the second week of class.  Our second project was to create at least two sets of materials for classes that we taught that could be scaled up or down depending on the level of the class being taught and used to illustrate at least two different possible lesson points.  The materials themselves and the papers written about each set describing the lesson points and scalebility were due in week three. 

The most difficult project was referred to as the ISP or Individual Student Project.  This consisted of securing a student from one of the classes and setting three outside of class times to meet with them.  We were required to find or design testing materials to test their reading, writing, listening and speaking skill sets; evaluate the results of each test and identify problem areas that could be facilitated with a private lesson.  We then had to design the lesson plan and all materials to be used, teach the lesson as a one-on-one tutoring session and write up an evaluation of the entire process, including a critique of our student’s performance and our own in all areas and suggest a future study program for the student.  The expectation was that this project would require around sixty pages to complete including all materials used, and would be turned in no later than the beginning of week four.

Needless to say, the very first weekend of the course was the only one we had any significant time away from homework and projects.  We took a day and went to visit the Alhambra, the most visited historic site in Spain, because we could not imagine being in Granada and not being able to see it.  So much for thinking that we could get to know the city!  The course was extremely demanding and our time was very focused on completing projects, teaching classes, and preparing for the final exams in Phonology, Grammar and Teaching Methodology. 

Many nights were spent with several students gathered in the salon or around the dining table as we worked on our projects, prepared for class or studied for exams.  This program should really be taught in a five week course and the instructors all agreed that four weeks is just too short a time to be able to accomplish everything required.  The issue is: people can find a way to take four weeks to do an international course but the threshold stops at that point; they just can’t sell a five week course, so they work with what they have. 

The fourth and final week began with exams and ended with course evaluations and reviews of our work with grades on Thursday.  There was time scheduled for a chance to retake of any test that was not passed on the original try.  Fortunately for us, we both passed them the first time through so it gave us a small window of time to see a bit more of the city for a couple of hours.

We spent Thursday night with our entire group going to dinner and a Flamenco show.  It was a wonderful evening in the Albaizyn at the restaurant Zoraya, and we all ended up at Hannigans of course.  There was good food, good Flamenco, lots of drinking and great company.

Friday morning there were scheduled a few follow up sessions and then a graduation ceremony with homemade Paella and Sangria.  We decided to skip the ceremony in order to take advantage of our last chance to visit the Nazrid Palaces at the Alhambra.  This was a justified trade-off in our opinion (sorry fellow trainees!). 

Friday evening we picked up our diplomas, had our “room check” to be sure that we were leaving our room in the same condition that we found it in, and then went out with all our fellow students to catch a few final drinks together.    We had lived, worked, studied and played with these people for a month and we knew we were going to miss all of them. 

Dylan has since written a great e-book, A Short Guide to TEFL if you are really interested in understanding the TEFL world. (Shameless plug for a good friend!)

Granada, for the first time....

Arriving in Granada in the pouring rain at seven in the evening wouldn’t be any fun even if you knew where you were going and how to get there, which we didn’t.   We had arranged our accommodations through the TEFL school and were a bit nervous; we had made the very conscious decision to “go local”.  We had booked into their version of a “boarding house” called the “residencia”.  We had been able to secure a bedroom that had its own private bathroom attached but knew that the rest of the house for the most part was bedrooms with shared bathrooms in the hallway.  We would be sharing a kitchen and living area, an experience we had never encountered before and which we expected to be a significant learning experience.

Knowing only that it was located in the oldest part of the city, the Albayzin, in a renovated 16^th century building with tiny narrow streets that were like a labyrinth, being tired and carrying baggage we did the only intelligent thing and decided to forgo trying to learn the bus system for another day and just take a cab.  Much to our dismay there were other passengers waiting at the cab stand but no cabs……in the cold and the rain.  In hindsight we think the couple of lone cab drivers that showed up in the next 10 minutes to take the first few groups of passengers into town must have just called all their friends told them to take their cars to the airport.  Eventually we got in a cab that did not have a meter, signs or anything that remotely made this late model Mercedes look like a cab but the driver was taking us to town so off we went.  Stupid, but at the time there were not many alternatives.  We made it to our destination 45 minutes and 35 euros later, should have been 30 minutes and 20-25 euros but, what did we know?               

Thankfully the rain had stopped while we were in route and we were let off right in front of a big archway that led to what looked like a church with a big wooden door to the left that turned out to be our destination.  The residencia had originally housed a seminary and was where the young monks lived while preparing to enter the order.  The area had originally been part of a Moorish palace complex built in the 11^th century but that was destroyed by the Christians at the end of the 15^th century.  The monastery was built on the location in the 16^th century.

The architecture still carried the Moorish flavor and featured very thick walls to keep the heat in or cold out depending on the season.  When we entered the building it immediately charmed us with an inner courtyard that had a fountain and plants and that would be open to the sky three stories up when the weather was nice.

It was larger than we expected and as Antony, our contact from the school, showed us around we found that the building had a rooftop terrace with the most spectacular views of the Alhambra that we could imagine.

Our room was tiny with two twin beds that we made into a king, a small nightstand and a small desk.  All of the furnishings were very rustic antiques in keeping with style of the building.  The room had one window that opened into the interior courtyard but not to the outside.  The bathroom - a sink, toilet and shower crammed into less than 5 square feet was surprisingly functional.

The entire Albayzin , this oldest area of the city, is a protected UNESCO World Heritage site.  This means that no updating or remodeling can be done without very a very rigorous permitting process which makes it very time consuming and expensive.  Everything has to be done to protect the integrity of the original structures and this means that the foundations cannot be dug up and new pipes put in underground unless the old clay pipes fail and there is absolutely no other choice.  We discovered that this meant no paper of any kind goes in the toilets.  Every toilet has a basket next to it with plastic bags and you NEVER flush toilet paper… talk about new experiences.

Antony explained the cardinal rule of never getting lost in the Albaizyn.  You can only go two directions, up or down, no matter how far to the right or left you go you will always be able to find your way to your destination within a few minutes’ walk.  He walked us to the school; 2 minutes away so that we could find our way to class and showed us the most common way down to town so we would not get easily lost.  While in town we picked up a few basic supplies fearing that everything would be closed the following day, Sunday, and then got settled in.  Our house manager was a lovely little Ecuadorian lady who spoke no English at all but was more than able to make you understand her meaning when it came to the rules of the house.  She showed us where to store our stuff in the communal fridge and cupboards and we learned that in addition to the TEFL students there were other residents in the house, some for short stays others as longer term boarders.

Sunday we walked around the area in the daylight to get oriented and discovered that “everything is closed on Sunday” doesn’t really mean “everything”, we had a meal in a charming little restaurant near the church San Miguel Bajo and picked up a few more supplies for the kitchen.  Our fellow students were arriving and we had an orientation meeting scheduled that evening at 8pm.  This was our first real experience with people who live on a Spanish schedule and for them, 8pm is not considered late for a meeting to start.  Orientation was, as most are, 2 hours of information that could have been covered in 20 minutes, but then we did get to take a lovely group walk to the Mirador San Nicolas to see the Alhambra all lit up for the evening and we later stopped at Bar Kiki for a drink and a tapa before heading back to bed.  Granada is just about the only city left in Spain in which tapas are free when you buy your drink.

We were definitely the old folks of the group; our fellow students were significantly younger than us, all under 35 and most under 30.  Ten students, from 5 countries, it was quite a mix.  The young enthusiastic energy that this group created was great for us, and everyone was very accepting of each other, so it was with a very positive outlook that we all got ready to begin classes at 9:30 Monday morning.

On to Barcelona

Barcelona.  Nice large, modern airport.  We don’t care.  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and after 22 hours of traveling we are tired, dirty and sore.  Not brave enough to try the bus, we garnered a taxi to our hotel.

The first thing we did absolutely right was our choice of hotel location.  We stayed in the hotel H10 PlazaCatalunya at the time it was less than 100euros a night and in Barcelona that was very reasonable.  Plaza Catalunya is at the top the La Rambla and is surrounded by bus stops and metro stations.  While our room was small by our standards, it was clean and comfortable, and once we walked around outside we confirmed that we were in the middle of everything.  We took showers and a nap.

Waking up around nine in evening we thought we had lost half a day in Barcelona.  Not necessarily true.  Walking outside the streets were jam packed and everything was open.  There was a restaurant next door to our hotel that had sidewalk tables and we found one, ordered beer, wine and seafood paella; a perfect introduction to Spain.  Expensive but perfect.

Not dealing with our jet-lag very well we returned to our hotel about 1am and tossed and turned until nearly 6am when we fell soundly asleep.  Awake at noon we once again thought we had wasted half a day in Barcelona.  Again, not true.

Restaurants were serving breakfast.  The Spanish version of breakfast turns out to be very different than the American version.  Coffee as Americans know it doesn’t exist in Spain although some restaurants provide a “Café Americano”; don’t do it.  Café is some form of espresso; single, double, with milk or cream etcetera.  Tostadas are the mainstay however and can be ordered with butter, jam, ham, cheese, tomato or any combination of these.  A tostada is a small (what we in the states would call a “French bread”) toasted on a grill.  So breakfast at noon is normal in Spain; weird for us.

We spent the afternoon wandering down La Rambla, wandering through the Boqueria (a huge indoor/outdoor fresh food market) and exploring the Gothic quarter.  There were crowds but since it was October they were not bad.  We absolutely stumbled upon the Picasso museum and were astounded at the sheer volume of sketches and “blue period” pieces that were on display.  We spent the better part of two hours there.  Of course now we needed to find the famous café where Picasso hung out as a teenager in Barcelona; 4 Cats or Quatre Gats.

On the way back to our hotel we passed a guitarist playing, and playing well, in a small courtyard surrounded by 3 and 4 story buildings.  The acoustics were simply incredible and we had to stay and listen for a bit.  We walked La Rambla back to our hotel and enjoyed the many street artists performing along the way.  That evening we slept well.

The next day we planned to take the metro to La SagradaFamilia.  This cathedral was designed by Gaudi and is very different type of gothic structure.  It has been under construction since 1882 and is still not finished.  At the risk of sounding irreverent or unappreciative of art or architecture, it looks from afar like several dripping candles.  Up close however, the detail is really incredible.

Even in October the lines at the Sagrada Familia were a block long but well worth the 45 minute wait.  We had a little trouble figuring out the Metro on the way there but, an apparently homeless person helped us by showing us how to work the ticket machine and we gave him a couple of euro for his assistance.  Another skill acquired.  Be careful though, this can be a common rip off scam so never give money in advance to an individual that approaches you like this.

That afternoon we went in search of “Quatre Gats”, in the El Barri Gotic or Gothic quarter and to explore El Raval.  We found Quatre Gats and were introduced to Barcelona’s version of tapas (a snack with your beverage).  It proved a very enjoyable rest and refreshment break in an incredible atmosphere.  There were pictures and posters on the walls by various famous artists, some of them quite old and I’m sure, quite valuable.  A significant number of tourists attempted to walk in and take pictures but were redirected by the staff.  Taking pictures is okay but you must be a paying customer.

The rest of our time in Barcelona passed quickly as we wandered this beautiful city.  The weather was perfect and the food delectable.  We had become brave enough to consider taking the bus to the airport.  We’d like to say that our day of departure came too quickly but for us, 4 days in Barcelona had been sufficient.

The morning of departure we walked across the plaza to the bus stop and got on the airport bus.  Arriving at the terminal we were absolutely unable to find our airline’s check in counter.  After 30 minutes of wandering around we realized that we were in the wrong terminal and needed to catch another bus to the correct terminal.  Tired and sweaty and out of time we arrived at our check-in counter (with very long lines) just in time to hear an announcement, in Spanish of course, concerning our flight.

Turns out, our 12:30pm flight had been delayed for at least one hour.  We checked our bags to Granada and proceeded to the gate.  By 2pm our flight had been cancelled along with the 1:30pm and 2:30pm flights.  It finally looked like we would be leaving by 3:30pm.  This fit the window we had arranged to meet the person who would check us into our accommodations.

For any of you that are irritated that messages in the United States (in airports or when calling a utility company for example) are repeated in Spanish or other languages I would invite you to an airport, bus station or train station in a country in which you do not speak the language, or don’t speak it very well.  If ever there is an announcement that concerns your travel, like a boarding announcement or a gate change, you will be grateful for that English repetition, trust me.

We finally boarded our aircraft at 4:30pm.  Four consecutive flights had been cancelled because, we think, the planes weren’t filled.  But now the flight was packed and we were unable to sit together during the 90 minute flight occupying instead, middle seats in different parts of the plane.  The captain then made an announcement that the flight had “missed its’ departure” slot due to the amount of time it took the passengers to board and would be delayed for 3 more hours. 

What ensued was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen on board an aircraft that had already left the gate.  Fully 80% of the passengers stood up and started pulling down their overhead luggage.  I cannot adequately describe the sound of over one hundred angry Spaniards all talking at once.  There was going to be a mutiny right there on the taxi way.  The captain had to come out of the cockpit to reassure the passengers and at first we thought they were going to string him up or at least throw him off the plane but eventually everybody calmed down and returned to their seats. 

Interestingly, we took off 15 minutes later.

Moving forward...

Okay, now what?   We had been told that the Peace Corps application process could take 18 months to 2 years for a couple that wished to serve together.  Seems like plenty of time but there was a lot we needed to do.

First, there was the house; sell it or rent it out?  Then there was the issue of our personal property, our stuff.  Storing it all for two or three years just didn’t seem to be a good solution.  On top of this there were the endless little things we started to realize we needed to do to prepare ourselves; banking, communication, acquiring additional skills and more.

We decided we had time to figure out what we were going to do with the house.  We determined that travel abroad, for any length of time, was going to require us to make a significant improvement in our technological capability.  Complete conversion to electronic methods would be a necessity.  Our laptops were going to become more important to us, MP3 players which were unnecessary to us in our current lifestyle needed to be acquired and most importantly, we were going to need e-readers of some kind since it would be impractical to travel with a lot of books.

We also wanted to spend some time, perhaps as much as 5 or 6 weeks, immersed in another culture; just to see how we adapted or in other words, how uncomfortable we might be.  It seemed rational for us to schedule a working vacation, abroad, acquiring our Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL certificates.  This is generally a one month course and they are taught all over the world.

We chose Granada, Spain for a combination of reasons.  Our research showed that the programs offered there were some of the most rigorous in the international TEFL society.  Granada was also the home of a major university and over 40 language schools.  We didn’t want to be in a large urban environment and programs in Sardinia or one of the Greek islands seemed a little too much like a vacation rather than a serious learning experience.  We also wanted to spend time in a place with a rich history we could explore in our free time.  Granada fit the picture so we signed up.

Now we were on a schedule.  It was late July and our class started the first week of October.  We had never tried to get away for more than two or three weeks before plus we needed to implement elements of our long range plan.  We had to work out coverage for our clients and figure out how to stay in touch.  Keeping the long term plan going meant we had to start getting rid of our stuff, the books had to go.

We are voracious readers, reading several hundred books per year.  Needless to say, we had built up quite an extensive library (in excess of 4,000 books).  We took the time to list them on EBay and Half.com and started to sell them.  We almost cried when we sold the first one.  After quite a bit of research we bought Kindles, and vowed not to buy another “real” book.  With so much free and inexpensive content available for our kindles we knew we could keep our reading habit alive at a significantly lower cost.

We also bought MP3 players and started to burn our existing music to them.  We upgraded one laptop and purchased another high end but very light weight model.  At the risk of sounding Bohemian we decided that backpacks were the way to carry them and our other electronics while we traveled.   Another month of research to figure out which type and size to buy (we bought Northface but there are lots of options), then trying it out at home to be sure everything would work and we were set.

By early September we were very busy with travel and business arrangements, selling books, buying e-books and burning music.  We set up Skype accounts in order to communicate with our clients, family and friends.  Later, we were glad we had set up our Facebook page so that we could easily share our international experiences. 

There was also a major change in our banking arrangements.  While most banks (but not all) have electronic bill pay capabilities, we were facing issues like currency exchange rates and using ATMs outside of the country.  The fees and other costs could become enormous.  The solution came with Charles Schwab HighYield Investor checking.  Here we get bank exchange rates, no foreign transaction fees, all of the electronic services we needed and they refund all ATM fees charged to your account from anywhere in the world.  Wonderful!

The next thing we knew we were on an airplane.  Our short stops in Philadelphia and Madrid flew by and we found ourselves in Barcelona, Spain.

First steps

One of the things we talked about was the possibility of serving in the Peace Corps for a couple of years when we were ready to retire.  This idea appealed to both of us and sounded like an ideal way to begin our retirement.  Initially we had planned to retire in our early sixties.

We looked long and hard at the Peace Corps and found positives and potential drawbacks.  We could serve together and it wasn’t unusual for people with more “life experience” to serve (5% of volunteers are over 50).  After attending a couple of recruiting meetings we were more or less convinced that this was something we could do.

As we evaluated other parts of our lives including downsizing our home and simplifying  our day-to-day existence we started to think: “Why not now?”  We could sell or lease our house while serving and restart our lives when we returned.  Perhaps the perspective we would gain while serving in the Peace Corps would help us determine the next direction for us. 

The application process; what can I say?  The Peace Corps application process is designed for the recent college graduates that make up the vast majority of their applicants.  Imagine finding dates, locations and physician names for vaccinations or surgeries that occurred 35 to 40 years ago, and getting transcripts from every university where you ever took a class. Then there’s the reference letters.

Reference letters are supposed to come from recent work or volunteer supervisors, kind of difficult when you been self-employed and haven’t had one for over 25 years.  Additionally, a personal reference letter is required, that’s the easy part…just gang up on your friends and see who is willing to put in the time required to fill out the online reference form sent out from the Peace Corps and answer all their questions about you.  Our friends, well you’d have to know our friends.  They could do more damage than help all in the name of humor or, alternatively, would be very uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the type of evaluation asked for.

We fought our way through the application process completing and submitting them in less than 5 weeks.  Las, our wonderful recruiter, explained many things to us about serving together and having significant “life experience”. Turns out it is difficult for the Peace Corps to place a couple together because they must match both of your skill sets with positions that come available, simultaneously.  This can take some time.  Although we both have quite varied skill sets the programs only classifies or needs a few.  To facilitate the selection process we decided to add to our skill sets whenever possible.

But what skills do you add to a lifetime of business and non-profit experiences?

As part of our research into retiring and living abroad we looked at ways to earn money or make a living overseas.  There are more alternatives than we originally thought.  One thing that made a lot of sense for us and that fit into the Peace Corps model was obtaining a TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate.  Teaching English, especially the TEFL method is utilized by the Peace Corps and is in demand worldwide.

TEFL certification courses are taught all over the world.  From a personal growth standpoint, we wanted to spend some time on the ground, living in a different culture where we didn’t know the language and would be required to learn some, and where we had never been before.  Kind of a “stick our toes in the water” approach before taking on a Peace Corps assignment.

We had always wanted to go to Spain….