Monday morning we began our last month of classes with the added bonus that soon we were going to get to see Kellie and Brit almost every day, even if just for a few minutes when we are on our morning break since both schools share the same buildings and gardens.

 Beautiful weather made for great outdoor activities and we took advantage of it!

In mid-July, our school offered a special activity.  Granada has an International Ballet Company and every summer they put on a very unique program at the outdoor stage in the gardens of the Alhambra.  Just imagine this 1,000 year-old fortress encompassing what seems like miles of palaces and gardens beautifully sculpted into the top of a hill with majestic views of the surrounding city at night.  Even without the ballet it would have been an evening to remember, but this year I was delighted to find, they were doing a show incorporating the story poems of local poet Garcia Lorca combined with the ballet company and a company of authentic Flamenco dancers and musicians. 

Michael was completely uninterested preferring to hang out and drink beer and speak Spanish badly with his friends but Kellie and Brittani got as excited as I was.  We bought our tickets, had dinner at Puerta de las Pesas before we left to go up to the show.  Being summer in Spain and an outdoor venue, the start time for the production was 10:00pm.  Unfortunately we were asked not to take photos during the performance but it was one of the most memorable of my life; all three of us were moved to tears at one point or another.  It so well performed that we were able to follow the story; even though we did not understand much of the language, or in the girl’s case, none at all.

 After the ballet we made our way to the bottom of the hill where Mike waited to have a beer and walk home with us.

When the girls had time, which was not often during their 4 week TEFL course, we managed to take a few hikes around the surrounding area and get some beautiful shots of Granada from the hills.  It was certainly a summer we will always remember fondly.

We were getting to the end of our school experience, many of the students that we had met were already gone and we were following their new adventures on FaceBook. 

We had a great group of friends and acquaintances that was expanding both in Spain and spreading out into the other places in the world that they called home.

Importantly, we had made some very good Spanish friends who did not speak any English.  We really needed these friends because communicating with them forced us to use the language we were learning.  

The family at Puerta de las Pesas, Fernando, Paloma, Jose and now Adrian and Danielle and sometimes even Ana were so patient with us. 

Incredibly, they didn’t seem to mind the abuse and in fact seemed to enjoy these crazy Americans with bad Spanish language skills.  This was important for us since we did not have a television to use for practicing our listening skills (highly recommended) and we needed Spanish speakers with whom we could converse without feeling the need to speak grammatically perfect as we were required to in our classes.

In addition to listening to our bad Spanish, they talked with us about the history and the local traditions of Granada, allowing us to feel more at home and to help us understand the people and culture in southern Spain.  We jealously watched their grand-daughter Noella speak freely and easily, with very few mistakes and we envied this little 3 year old conjugating machine.

 We were able to watch how she was learning the language and listen to the way she was corrected in her own native tongue.  We spent so much time sitting outside this particular restaurant that all our classmates and professors started referring to it as our salon (living room) and we totally agreed.

One drizzly day, Fernando took us on a walk around the Albaycin and we brought Kellie and Britani with us.  We walked out of Plaza Larga through the new gate and then stayed within 1 kilometer of the top of the hill, on just one side in a small section of the Albaicin and saw more historical features than we could have imagined in this small area. 

We took a few photos but mostly just listened to Fernando explain the history of each place and tried to understand the details of what he was telling us.  Knowing that we were only grasping a very small part of all that he was telling us was both frustrating and enlightening.  We wanted to know it all, right then, but somehow knew that we would enjoy the telling of this history over and over as our language skills improved and we spent more time among and gained a better understanding of the wonderful people who live there.

We were living in a little house that is as old as our country, walking to school every day on paths that have existed for centuries, and learning from the people who live with this everyday of their lives, it is an experience that does not readily translate onto paper. 

This new chapter in our lives was shaping up to be incredibly interesting.  Fernando brought books, drawings and photographs to the restaurant and patiently explained the perspectives and history piece by piece.  There is a lifetime of learning to be done in cities like Granada and we have been delighted that we chose it as our first home away from home.

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.

New people, new friends, new language.

In these early days at Castila, we met Diana, an attorney from Baton Rouge who had arrived just three weeks before we did and Kelsey a vivacious 18 year old from Colorado doing her “gap year” in Spain and who, damn her, spoke Spanish fairly well.  

From Australia we had a classmate Lesley and a couple who were both physicians, another couple who had just spent 9 months in Nepal as observers in the electoral process were originally from England.

 We met university students from both mainland China and Taiwan, a woman from Singapore and a travel journalist from Hong Kong.

  Ricardo, a 22 year old from Florida who had just graduated and was headed back in the fall for grad school joined our class, and we got to know Ethan, a 16 year old high school student from Chicago whose Spanish was several levels better than ours and those are just the people we got too know in the first couple of weeks!

On Friday afternoons, after classes, the school would get everyone together for an afternoon tapas hour, occasionally it was hosted at the school with Victoria cooking but most often they would pick a local restaurant and off we would go “a tapeo”.  Most of the restaurants and bars in the Albaicin and many all over Granada are family owned and have been for several generations.  After our experience in the market at Plaza Larga we started going up there regularly to shop and also to grab a drink after class or to enjoy “comida” (traditionally the large meal of the day eaten in mid-afternoon) in one of the several restaurants in the area. 

Puerta de las Pesas (also known as Puerta Nueva) is actually a very special gate in the wall of the original city that dates from the 11th century.  It was a strong defensive position and the place where the people who came from inside the city would leave to go out to the markets that built up outside the walls and then return with their purchases.  As they passed through the gates the weight of the items that had been purchased would be verified by the authorities for the payment of taxes.  If it was found that a merchant had cheated someone (shorted the weight) then the merchant’s weights would be confiscated and hung above the gate, effectively putting him out of business.  Puerta de las Pesas in Spanish means Gate of the Weights. 

Every time we would go up to Plaza Larga we would pass through this beautiful reminder of what a wonderfully historic place we had chosen for this new beginning.  One afternoon, on the way to the open air produce market we stopped at the restaurant named Puerta de las Pesas, a family owned restaurant just beyond the gate itself.  We needed a drink and a tapa to ease the after school headache and they were offering a great “menu del dia” special of the day, for comida; an appetizer, main course, dessert and bread for 8.50 euros.  We chatted with Jose, the waiter, in our very broken Spanish and learned that the restaurant had recently changed ownership and had only been reopened for a month prior to our arrival. 

The school had activities of one kind or another almost every evening.

 We took a long beautiful hike above the Alhambra and got some of the most spectacular views of Granada, the Albaicin and the Sacramonte we had ever seen. 

This old city was really starting to capture our hearts.

We tried “movie night” and although we do understand that listening to Spanish is a great way to try to train your ear, we were so far out of our depth that we decided movies would be much more enjoyable after a few more weeks of lessons. 

Our interest in and fascination with the history and culture of this area was increasing daily, what a great choice Granada was for a first try at living overseas.

Early days in our Spanish school.

During our first month back in Granada we were busy trying to figure out a new language, new schedule, new culture, new people and we really wanted to enjoy the whole experience.   We are relatively self-motivated, not afraid of working hard and had expected to be able to learn these new skills in the same way we had mastered new tasks in the past.

WRONG!  Learning a new language for the first time, as an adult, is one of the most difficult things we have ever tried to do.  The culture in a new environment grows into a feeling of normalcy over time and the people grow into friends and acquaintances in a similar way everywhere we’ve been.  Time and fording the language barrier are the most important components to a real understanding of new people and places.  The language requires the commitment of time and energy; it is not enough to want to speak it and to take classes and study, you also have to spend hours every day listening and trying to participate in conversation.  Before we embarked on this journey we had been told to expect to be somewhat comfortable and able to get along in the language by the end of the first year and not to expect fluency until we had been living and speaking exclusively the new language for two years or more.   With the benefit of partial hindsight, we probably agree with this timetable.

One of the benefits of taking formal classes in an accredited language school is that you meet a whole bunch of other people from all over the world who are trying to accomplish the same thing you are.  During the second week of our classes the school hosted a big paella dinner and we had a chance to meet a lot of the other students.  One of the professors Antonio, “sin gafas” (Antonio without glasses, not to be confused with Antonio, “sin pelo”, Antonio without hair) was the chef, and our class, all three of us, were given the opportunity to help by accompanying Antonio sin gafas to buy the ingredients.

We had a class to familiarize us with the vocabulary of paella ingredients and basic question and response phrases useful in the market so that we knew how to ask for things, then we each took part of the shopping list and walked up to Plaza Larga.  We spent a wonderful hour meeting the ladies who run the Pescaderia (fish shop), the “gitano” (local gypsy) lady who has the best fresh fruit and vegetables in the Mercado, the family that runs the Panaderia (bakery) and the man who cuts the meat however you want it in the Carneceria (butcher shop).

We returned to school with all the stuff and with a bit more confidence; everyone had been helpful and patient with our attempts at speaking their language and it made us want to learn more so we could actually carry on a conversation with them.  We helped prepare the food coached by both Antonio and the beautiful Russian girl Victoria who runs the kitchen at school.  Speaking only Spanish, of course…..

First time language learners, here we go.....

It’s a beautiful Monday morning and the first day of Spanish classes.  We arrived ten minutes early which required we wait for forty minutes (our first Spanish lesson).  We had chosen to take classes at Castila for a several reasons.  Our TEFL training had been located at their beautiful facilities, we had previously spoken with several of the staff and the school had the certifications we were looking for.  Importantly, Castila came recommended by several other people we knew, and we had already corresponded with Allison, the administrative assistant, through InterNations.

It wasn’t the cheapest school but we were comfortable with the quality of education we would receive for our money.  The classes were guaranteed to have 6 or less students each which we thought would be a very comfortable learning environment.  We had arranged for a 12 week intensive course thinking that would be the minimum we’d need to obtain a decent grasp of the language basics.

A group of 6 or 7 of us were finally herded into a room and given a 3 or 4 page multiple choice and fill in the blank test and told not to answer any questions we were not absolutely sure of.  Needless to say, we were done very quickly and found ourselves sipping coffee, waiting for those who could actually answer some of the questions, for an hour or so.

It turned out that there were three of us beginners, we were joined by a lovely lady from Perth, Australia and our first professor decided he would conduct class under the fig tree in the garden.  For the two of us and our new friend Leslie it was a wonderful environment for a language class.  We were supplied with our books, all written in Spanish of course.  When they say immersion, they mean immersion.  It was a very interesting experience to be given a text book and course guide for the class and not be able to read a word of it.

The first couple of weeks our Spanish class was not too bad, they stuck to the basics.  Early on, the focus was on vocabulary acquisition, with a bit of pronunciation.  Verb conjugation began but only with the most common verbs in present tense.  Our class schedule was 9:30 am to 2:00 pm Monday through Friday, under the fig tree, with optional cultural events every evening and on weekends.

Every other Monday evening at 6:00 pm they would have a “Copa de Bienvenidos” or welcome cocktail with a discussion of all the activities slated for the following two weeks.  We would have a printed copy and they would explain everything in detail.   Everything was written and spoken only in Spanish, of course. We spent a lot of time with our Spanish/English dictionary, which by the way, we were not allowed to use in class.

Tuesday was movie night, Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles.  The idea is to see and hear it as much and as often as possible so your ear becomes attuned to the language.  What it really means for rank beginners is a serious headache from listening so hard and trying to process so much. 

Other activities like seeing some of the historic sites, taking hikes and even weekend trips to other parts of Andalucía were all on the program and you could do as much or as little as your brain and budget could handle.

During our third week of class the school enjoyed an influx of thirty very young students from France.  Leslie had moved on to enjoy some vacation time before heading home to Australia so we were on our own.  We were bumped up a level and spent an entire week learning food vocabulary and trying to keep up with the group we had been moved into.  We had not yet learned several key components of the language (like past tense) that this class had already learned and we were definitely out of our depth.  By Friday we were completely frustrated and decided to spend a couple of hours in the residencia with our wonderful friend and house manager Mercedes.  She doesn’t speak English but is very patient and worked through some of our lessons with us at the dining room table.

The following week with the youth group back in France, and we were back in business.  They reshuffled all the classes based on current level, a couple of new students had arrived so our group expanded and we went from being classified as “beginner” to “elementary”.  We were becoming accustomed to the Spanish schedule at this point and were were really beginning to enjoy our everyday life in Granada.

Buying into our wild idea completely.

Late summer turned out to be a time of momentous decisions for us.  The Peace Corps contacted us and asked if we would be willing to delay our service for a full year, to which we agreed.  With Marilyn’s accident it was going to be difficult to obtain medical clearance in time to serve earlier.  I was informed that since I had turned 50 I would need to have a colonoscopy in order to clear medical.  Oh joy!  At this point however, we were beginning to wonder if serving in the Peace Corps was actually going to be in our future given the delays in our medical clearance process.

As Marilyn continued to improve from her hand surgery and whiplash we began discussing what we would do if we were unable to serve in the Peace Corps or if our service was again delayed.  Trying to time the sale of our home and ridding ourselves of all the things we used every day was going to take time and it would be a process that once started, could not be stopped.  After much discussion, we came to the conclusion that we still wanted to live abroad, see the world and experience new cultures.  Our friends were beginning to think we were crazy at this point and some of them wondering why we would want to live abroad or spend so much time together.

What followed was a series of life changing decisions as we now bought into our wild idea completely.  We decided not to replace Marilyn’s car and instead try to share one vehicle.  This was going to require some serious coordination which we figured would be good practice for us.

We also decided to go ahead and put our house on the market and try to get it sold by the end of the year.  This would give us a time frame in which we could organize all of the other things we needed to do.  Most importantly, we made the decision that we were going to just go, rather than wait for the Peace Corps bureaucracy to drive our actions.

From our reading and research we had developed the thought process that we might be able to “follow the sun” by living in Europe during the summer and then in South America in, well, the summer.  We really hate to fly however but we had discovered this really interesting fact; cruise lines relocate ships from the Caribbean and South America to the Mediterranean in the spring and reverse this process in the fall.  There were some fantastic deals available that made a 3 week cruise cost the same as flying.  Since we would be in no particular hurry and the cruise provided the added benefit of covering 3 weeks of living expenses; this became one of our preferred travel strategies.

We then took a lovely 3 day break during which our friends from the TEFL course, Nathan and Frannie, visited us.  I’m not sure we got out of the pool other than to eat or sleep for those roasting hot late summer Arizona days.

 Both Nathan and Frannie were freshly returned from several months in Granada and we were able to catch up on the news of our other friends there.  We really missed Granada!

Back to work, put the house on the market and immediately we found we needed to make several more important decisions.  Where were we going to go?  When were we going to go?  How were we going to get there?  What were we going to do when we got there?  It may sound like we really had no plan at all but that wasn’t true; it was the details and advanced planning required that we really needed to address and all of these details dovetailed with each other.

By early fall and after hours of discussion we decided to begin this adventure with a return to Granada, Spain and take Spanish language classes.  It made sense to us to try to acquire another language and Spanish is spoken in a lot of places in the world that we wanted to experience.  Now began the research on language schools in Granada (there are over 40).  We were familiar with Castila because they provided space for our TEFL program and we knew they were a quality program.  While they weren’t the cheapest program there was the benefit of familiarity for us and they would be able to arrange housing for us until we were able to find a place.

Now we had to decide when.  That would be determined to a large extent by our travel schedule because Castila initiated beginner level classes every other week.  We had put this largest of decisions off as long as we could.  It was time to commit…. so we signed up for classes beginning in early May and committed to an intensive course for 12 weeks.  We found a 2 week cruise that left San Juan, Puerto Rico (a place we wanted to visit) in mid-April and traveled to Malaga, Spain which is only an hour and a half from Granada by bus.  We wanted to spend a few days in Old San Juan and by working backwards like this our departure date was identified.  Our departure would be on April 11^th; my birthday.

We put the house on the market and decided to join a very interesting group called InterNations that was forming a new Phoenix chapter.  InterNations is a networking group for people who are either living abroad or simply interested in traveling abroad.  It is a group of widely diverse people of many different nationalities and they are a friendly group of people.  In fact, not long after we joined we were contacted by an American who had been living in Granada for 3 years offering whatever assistance or guidance she could.  Amazingly, it turned out she worked for Castila and her assistance was both invaluable and appreciated.  Gracias Allison.  Te echamos de menos.

We felt were definitely on the right track, and the train was now running at full speed.