TEFLees in Spain

The Spanish always find a reason to celebrate.  Yes, Americans do dress up as everything other the sun to (against all reason) ask for candy from strangers on October 31st, but the Spanish insist on November 1st being a national holiday.  It’s just too convenient. 

The beautiful thing about Spanish holidays is the phenomenon we call “puente.”  If a holiday falls on a Tuesday, the Monday is a write-off.  If a holiday falls on a Thursday (which it always seems to…), then of course, a four-day weekend is declared. 

Although I am fairly certain that this relaxed mañana attitude is huge part of why we love the Iberian Peninsula, we definitely criticize it when it affects us negatively (in line at the bank, in line at the supermarket, in line for the bus…. in any line, actually).  We laugh about the disproportionate amount of liquor in our copas and shake our heads at the two-hour lunch.  But maybe, unconsciously, we are slowly synchronizing with the dawdling pace.

So last night, in honor respecting Spanish culture, I fulfilled my civic duty by going to a Spanish bar with some of my August TEFLites.  And there we discovered Madrid’s best kept secret… the 60 cent caña.  (I am not disclosing the location of this bar, because it was hard enough last night to get a table)  For 60 cents, it would have been rude to leave after one… or two… or three. 

So we bought each other rounds.  We toasted to the cheap beer, and to the 2-month anniversary of their course graduation, and to the new TEFLees (whom I adore, but whom no one else at the table actually knew), and to the return of Meaghan, who went back to Canada for a while after the August TEFL ended. 

And then, with no warning, I think we toasted to the random holiday that probably none of us completely understood, just searching for a reason to celebrate.  Maybe we laugh at the leisurely pace of Spaniards to distance ourselves from a truth we are afraid to admit: After a short time of heavy exposure, we’re all a little Spanish on the inside.