Summer in Spain

By the end of June we were settled into a routine.  A beautiful stroll every morning through the upper Albaicin from the Sacramonte with a quick stop for coffee at Pasteles and then settle in at our outdoor table under the fig tree at school for four hours of language lessons.  Through the end of May and first few weeks of June we had several people spend a week or two with us in our class.  There was Federico, a German gentleman and then there was Maurice whose French accent was so strong that we struggled to understand his Spanish at all.  Then, we were joined by the amazing Ricardo, a young, energetic American from Miami with whom we became very good friends.

Usually, after class we would stop at Puerta de las Pesas for a drink to relieve our headaches and of course, tapas, sometimes even lunch.  Although we usually did not want to hear another word of Spanish, Jose and Fernando continued to speak with us and work with us on our homework.  We had completed the English translation of their brochure and this really helped in our learning process, especially vocabulary and also indoctrinated us into the incredible history of Granada and the Albaicin. 

Fernando was looking forward to seeing his oldest, Adrian who was returning with his young family from a couple of years in Chile.  When Adrian arrived he began waiting tables as well and one day he prepared the most fabulous seafood paella for all of us.  Did I mention that only three or four of us (generally Marilyn, Diana, Ricardo and I) would sit down and within an hour there would sometimes be as many as seven or eight?

Daniela, Adrian’s wife was pregnant and struggling through the summer heat to keep up with their beautiful and sometimes recalcitrant daughter Noella.  At three years old we were jealous of her conjugating skills if you can believe it.  Although we were concerned about our inability to speak and understand the language very well this was shaping up to be a magical summer of new friends and interesting places for us.

We sampled the nightlife around Granada on the weekends, sometimes leaving the younger students and friends around 3 or sometimes 4 in the morning to head home “early”.  By this time, the private school student deluge had ceased but the school still had 15 or 20 students, most of who socialized together at one point or another, especially during Friday afternoon/evening tapas.

By late June Ethan, a young man from Chicago with great language skills and Adam, a true polyglot whom we called “Bob” (because Antonio at the school thought he looked like Bob Marley with his wild hair), had become part of our social crowd.  The classes mixed and matched every other Monday as new students arrived and student skill levels evaluated.

Our class generally consisted of Diana, Ricardo, Paulina and ourselves with the occasional addition of another student or two.  Mabel, our friend from Singapore (and a world traveler) had finished up by the end of May and headed home.  Kelsey left for the USA and our Aussie doctors, Mike and Natalia headed home by mid-June but we had gained Lucinda “Cinders” and her husband along with a couple of beautiful girls, Tuva and Klara from Norway and Hungary respectively.  As you can see our language school was an ever expanding and contracting social net.

Meanwhile, Chessa had returned to New York in May with Renee and surprising us all, returned in time to catch the June TEFL course in Granada which she passed with flying colors.  We managed to catch up with our old TEFL teachers Dylan and Richard, although separately this time around.  Our new friend Jamie and her husband (who had told us about the house we were currently living in) were experiencing difficulty obtaining a work visa for her without returning to the USA according to some new regulations now being enforced by Spanish immigration officials and it was looking like they’d have to incur the travel expense to take care of it.

By the end of June we had our heads full of the Spanish language grammatical structure, could not understand much of what was being said around us and certainly couldn’t speak well at all.  We had made many new and fun friends however and were eagerly awaiting the arrival of our daughter Kellie and her friend Brittany in early July for their TEFL class.

 It was a perfect time to do a little more exploring, Diana was game for another drive so the last weekend in June we headed out for another Andalucian getaway.