TEFLees in Spain

Anyway, so regardless of this unwarranted look-on-bright-side attitude, I was, if anything, bored. All I had for company now was a half empty pack of Marlboro Lights, a cell phone with no minutes, and a waning buzz. It was in this moment that another thought popped into my head: having the station to myself had started conjuring up scenes from Home Alone, and I wondered for a split second what type of shenanigans I could get up to in the three and a half hours until it reopened. This is my house – I have to protect it! But this epiphany passed as soon as it came, and it was quickly obvious that no matter how optimistic I wanted to be, there was really nothing fun or exciting about spending the night inside the metro.

Heart beating once again with nervous adrenaline, it occurred to me that if the gate shut on a timer, maybe the lights would turn off, too. There was no doubt in my mind - it was time to pull myself together and find my way to freedom. So, with all other plans exhausted and no alternate answers in the idea box, I started sprinting around the station in search of an emergency exit. This was, after all, an emergency. Luckily for me, it didn’t take more than a couple solid metro laps before happening upon a set of double doors with a green sign reading: salida de emergencia. And then, thanking the lord with silent gratitude that the Spanish had actually prepared for such a situation, I braced myself for the sounding alarm, and busted through.

Met once more with still silence, I took a deep breath, let the cool air of what appeared to be a mineshaft-type corridor freshen my senses, and followed the hallway to its end. Or rather, to its dead end, I should say. Keeping within the spirit of my exponentially growing misfortunes, this miracle exit - this oasis in my desert of an abandoned metro station - was punctuated with a perfectly normal set of stairs – running straight into the ceiling!

As I stood stroking my chin in awe of this architectural cluster-fuck, I couldn’t help but laugh. We’d always joked that there are no rules or reasoning in this country, and this seemed to be Spain’s jeering way of joking back. I couldn’t really help from feeling like Ed Norton in Fight Club - hitting bottom. His name is Robert Paulson. His name is Robert Paulson…

Anyway, when I finally snapped out of this daydream/nightmare, I came to find that while my mind was wandering, my body had been leaning on a lever – quite a large lever, conveniently enough – with another sign reading: Tirar para abrir la puerta. And without blinking, I was on that lever with all my weight, giggling with involuntary childish glee as I watched the ceiling creak open; a great yawning metal mouth in la plaza de lavapies.

Wasting little time in premature celebration, I waited until the crack was just wide enough to squeeze through, and, crouched on all fours, crawled out into the night like a countertop cockroach and punched the free air with a fistful of victorious triumph. A group of terrified Spaniards were lucky enough to witness this event as well, and while they stood staring in shock, I brushed myself off, let out a heavy sigh of relief, gave them a half-smile and shrug, and blurted out the only word appropriate enough to summarize my thoughts on this ordeal: “Joder!”

Well, I thought, with a wipe of the hands, my mouth suddenly watering for whiskey, now where’d that damn Frenchman run off to?

The story begins at 2:15 on a Friday evening with me enjoying some cocktails at a friend’s Christmas party on the last weekend before break. While in the depths of what was most certainly a deep, intellectual conversation (screaming over the music), my phone rang.

“Charles!” I answered. “Ca va, mi ami?”

“Hi Matt. I think we’re downstairs from your party. Can you come get us? We’re in the metro, waiting.”

Puzzled as I was to why my roommate would wait inside the actual metro so late at night, I shrugged it off merely as another quirky Frenchism and hustled my way down. Being that the metro closes at 1:30 however, it came as no surprise when I soon found myself standing alone inside lavapies station – not a passenger, worker, or Frenchman in sight.

“Here, Frenchie, Frenchie, Frenchie,” I whistled, expecting Charles to hop out from around the corner. Yet irritatingly enough, the only response to my calls was an echoing of my voice throughout the eerily empty station. Assuming that Charles must have no doubt been mistaken with his English prepositions again, I figured he was probably just waiting outside somewhere, so I headed back towards the stairs.

Much to my horror though, I’d arrived at the exit just in time to watch in slow motion as the automatic gate click closed, blocking my only way out and shutting me inside, alone. So sensibly, I did the only thing one could do in such a situation: I grabbed the bars of the gate like a crazed inmate and from my underground prison, started yelling frantically at the passersby above, “Ayuda! Ayuda! AYUDA!” Though mostly ignored by the majority, I did at least manage to startle one couple into stopping. But instead of aiding in my escape, they just cocked their heads curiously like confused cocker spaniels, studying me as if I were an exotic beast in some bizarre zoo exhibit. “Oh look, honey - what a peculiar American! Notice how he shakes the bars and makes those grunting sounds. Do you have a quarter so we can throw him some peanuts?”

Realizing that this method was obviously doomed to fail, I stepped away from the gate, took a second to gather my thoughts, and moved on to plan B: find the other exit. Unfortunately, as I soon to discovered, the lavapies metro was made with only one entrance, so around every turned corner was a dead end. On the up side though, the lights were still on, I had the whole station to myself, and if worse came to worse, I figured I could just take a short jog down the tunnel to the next stop a kilometer away. Ridiculous, yes, but after several hours on the sauce, this is actually what I thought. Scary, I know.

As I wrote on a previous post, it’s inevitable that after half a year, unless you’re either a heartless savage or a stoic, you start becoming close to your students. And like I’ve tried to convey through most of my blogs, nearly all the times you share together during class are good. We laugh a lot, share travel plans, weekend stories, and family photos. We discuss politics, world news, and last night’s Real Madrid match. Usually, it’s all casual and fun. Usually.

So it came as an unwelcome surprise when this morning, one of my favorite students came in looking rather long in the face. “How was your weekend?” I asked meekly, hoping that what I at first glance deemed to be pain in his eyes was mistaken instead for midweek sleep deprivation.

“Not good,” he confessed with typical Spanish bluntness. “I was all day in the eye clinic with my wife. Many, many hours we waited. And many times the doctor made examinations of my eyes.”

Sitting quietly and not wanting to interrupt with corrections, I leaned in closer as an example of my attentiveness, and let him continue.

“The doctor, he say me that I must to have operation for transplant in the eyes, but this is very expensive. If I can’t pay, then in some years I will lose – how do you say?” he asked, gesturing with open hands around his eyes.

“Sight?”

“Yes. I will lose my sight,” he repeated, his face working to hold back tears, as if saying it aloud had all of a sudden made it real to him all over again. Not knowing what to say, caught off guard through my yawning and crabby early morning half consciousness, my heart now somewhere in my shoes, I was at a loss for words. Carlos? Go blind? How do you comfort someone who will lose their sight? What do you say? It’s OK? At least you’ll have the rest of your senses? Carlos is one of the most genuine, friendly, and cheerful students I have – this was the first time I’d ever seen him without a smile. What do I say? Still a bit tongue tied, I realized that there was nothing really to do but express my heartfelt regret.

“I’m so sorry Carlos!” I replied with meaning. What else was there to do? We continued on with the day’s lesson eventually, and he did perk up a bit by the end, but throughout the class and onto the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking that for all my complaining, pet peeves, and minor annoyances, I have it pretty good, living here. I’ve got my health, a steady job, and plenty of friends to pass the time with. I’ve got one mouth to feed – my own – as opposed to Carlos with two children. Humbled, I realized that my Monday morning moodiness fits nowhere into the grand scale of struggles, and just how much teaching English can have its way of putting things into perspective.

Another highlight of the castle was its store of rescued armory artifacts. Two rooms at its far end served to display various full bodied suits of armor, stainless steel swords and arrows, iron cast corroding cannon carcasses, and glass box displays of expertly crafted cross bows and antique archery equipment. As fascinated as all these weapons of war were to examine, it was eerie to think how many lives had been taken at the expense of their sharpened tips, and difficult to imagine trying to fight hand to hand not only while encaged in a constricting shell of clamorous, clanking metal, but to simply see anything at all through the narrow slits of the knights’ enormously globular helmets. The shadows of late afternoon were starting to stretch longer though, and so it was with a determinedly devout demonstration of self restraint that I begrudgingly obeyed the “NO TOCAR” signs pasted all over creation and turned to the exit – head down, hands in pockets, and ready for the last leg of our castle tour.

For the perfect punctuation to this picturesque day, we wound our way up the 152 spiraling stairs to the tower’s top terrace where we could see for miles on every side – a truly panoramic piece of optical opulence. To the south and west, a quiet village nestled itself cozily into the hills like a blanketed infant in sound slumber; to the north and east, a sleepy river snaked through thickets of trees, past the walls of Segovia’s town limits, and upwards towards the mountains; and everywhere we turned the landscape was awash in the glowing warmth of golden sunshine. While we stood taking it all in and regretting the advancing short hand of the ever-impatient clock, a light breeze carrying with it the springtime scent of budding blossoms played winsomely at our flapping shirt sleeves as we wistfully watched the shadows of a sinking Spanish sun deepen like puddles of twilight in a summer squall, splashing navy blue tiger stripes across the countryside and bringing with them the close of another beautiful Iberian afternoon.

All in all it was a perfect day. I was sad to say goodbye to Segovia, my new favorite neighbor, but thanks to Spain’s increasingly efficient system of high speed railways, it’s little less than a stone’s throw away. And although I won’t be making monthly visits, I can at least take comfort in knowing that whether I’m homesick for green grass and fresh air or just hungry for some roasted piglet, Segovia, like its aqueduct has proven, isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

The supposed inspiration for Disney’s Magic Kingdom Castle, the Alcazar was built on quite an impressive location. Sitting atop a cliff at the highest point in town, the castle perches protectively over its kingdom like a mother grizzly watching her cubs. The surrounding hamlets and hillocks seemed to be bowing towards the Alcazar as well, and it was almost as if the very land itself was sculpted for the sole purpose of paying it homage.

When we crossed the drawbridge over the dried up mote and entered the castle gates, I couldn’t help but feeling that I was walking through a portal into another time, and it was easy for the child-soldier in me to imagine being suited in armor atop a trusty steed, my battle-bloodied blade victoriously sheathed, returning home with honor after a successful conquest in the name of the king.

I was a bit disappointed to learn however, that this castle, like so many other Spanish landmarks, had been badly burnt during one of Spain’s numerous wars, and was now just a partially rebuilt replica of what it used to be. The outside at least, along with many artifacts, had managed to have been salvaged somehow, and although the inside did contain slight twinges of modern masonry, the time-traveling effect still remained on in full force.

Our view from the castle windows looking out over the red roofs of the village below was enough to cause temporary amnesia of this fact however, and the thrones and tapestries remained well preserved, too. The antique furniture and tiny suits of armor on display served as a comical reminder of how small people used to be in those times as well, and I laughed to think that the war heroes of yesteryear only came up to my chest. If only I’d been born a few hundred years earlier – too small to make it in the world of pro sports today, I could have easily been a battle proven warrior back then – knighted by the king, sending enemies of the throne into knee-knocking fits of trembling terror, and causing unsuspecting señoritas to swoon with a smile.

So we headed away from the aqueduct, pictures snapped and memories logged, in the direction of Segovia’s ancient cathedral. The gently sloping uphill walk took only about ten minutes or so, and we shortly found ourselves shivering in the damp darkness of the cavernous cathedral hall. Now, no matter how many cathedrals I’ve visited during my European conquests, the shear enormity of their size never ceases to amaze me. As I stood, neck craning and eyes squinting to make out the faint figures depicted on its many altitudinous apertures, I figured that from front to back, minus the gigantic choir lofts and pulpits occupying its center space, one could play a proper game of full-contact football, or at a stretch, a pickup game of summer stickball. Aside from these pre-modern Megadome fantasies, I took in the glowing golden altarpieces and intricately carved capillas, imagining with wonder the amount of time and money that must have gone into such a construction. If we’d taken just five seconds to examine each piece of artwork, I’d probably still be there today – no doubt jobless, dehydrated, and certainly not writing about it for your intellectual enjoyment. Regardless, we wandered around freezing through our t-shirts for about an hour or so before deciding to listen to our growling stomachs that it was finally time for our long awaited first taste of Segovia’s specialty: roast suckling pig, or cuchinillo.

To many this may seem a cruel endeavor, the slaughtering of innocent infant animals. My apologies to PETA. But to me, baby animals, adult animals, raw animals, small animals, fluffy animals, fried animals, happy animals, sad animals – everyone’s welcome to the palate party. My taste buds don’t discriminate. A bit barbaric, yes – but I’m an omnivore, damn it – all of the above simply spell delicious, and cuchinillo, the Spanish delicacy that I’ve for so long seen devoured by TV hosts on travel programs back home, was certainly worth the hype. Cute? I guess. Cuddly? Perhaps. Tasty? You bet your shorts. Would I like to pet one before I eat it? Well, let’s not get carried away, but we did have some laughs over the idea of a cuchinillo petting zoo before the meal was served. And when the food finally did arrive, it took all I had to keep from going face to plate like a county fair contestant in the no-hands pie race. It was therefore with a well-mannered exercise of sophisticated self control that, cutlery wielded and ready, I ignored the guilty gut pangs in my gullet and mother’s sorrow-sick sighs of sympathy, and, putting knife to piglet, crunched through. What ensued was a Graceland of gourmet goodness; a flavor phenomenon of paradisiacal proportions; in essence, the pinnacle of pork-dom on earth: an outer layer of crispy, khaki-colored skin giving way to a succulently savory, slightly salty white meat center; altogether so tender and delicate that the grinning camareros who quartered it tableside were able to do so using only the blunt edge of a dinner plate. It was a no holds barred display of carnivorous corpulence; a whizzing whirlwind of fork to mouth fiendery; the one negative about this delectable delight being that it had most certainly ended too soon. I could’ve eaten more – much more, and it saddens my heart (but not my waistline) to know that cuchinillo isn’t something I can order every day at my corner-side café. Regardless of this post-coital-like comedown, we dabbed satisfactorily at the corners of our now mollified mandibles, regrouped once again, and continued on to the day’s last destination: Segovia’s Alcazar.

One of the great things about this city, as any true gato can attest, is its central location and ease of access to surrounding small town tourist day trips. Although I haven’t exactly made the most of this opportunity (as it’s taken me the better part of a year to simply cross over to the other side of Madrid’s mountains), I’ll refrain from cursing myself for such procrastinations, and instead say that if anything it was well worth the wait. And while the arid landscape of central Spain has offered little exploratory motivation with its sullenness of sandy scenery, as I discovered last weekend when my folks came to visit, the grass is actually greener on the other side – of the mountains at least – and luckily for us madrileños, it’s only a hop, skip, and jump away.

So what lies beyond yonder hills? Well, Segovia, of course. Typically mentioned in the same breath as its twin daytrip counterpart Toledo, Segovia is a medieval island in a sea of green, with snowy mountain peaks looming quietly in the distance.

Not quite as closed in and quiet as the dark alleys of Toledo, Segovia’s airy streets were bustling with the comings and goings of tourists and locals alike upon our arrival; all life emanating outward from its pulsing center: the ancient Roman aqueduct. Now, I’d heard from people before about the “majesty and magnificence” of this freestanding architectural wonder, but I always shrugged it off as euphoria-induced, touristy hype. What could be so impressive about an aqueduct? Big deal – they had plumbing. Congratulations, Segovia. I bet you didn’t even have hot water. Your water pressure was probably rubbish as well, and I don’t even want to think about your filtration system. It’s not necessary to paint the whole picture, but let’s just say that that hunchbacked-dude who lived alone upstream at the top of the mountain is still laughing in his grave, so don’t get too cocky about it.

Cynicisms aside however, as soon as we stepped off the bus, we were, like a slap in the face, standing in the cool shadow of the aqueduct’s hundred foot high, multi-leveled stone façade. Staring down at us tauntingly and stretching off out of eyeshot in both directions, its smoothly symmetrical solid stone slabs seemed each to weigh a ton apiece as they rocketed impossibly upwards into the clear Segovian sky. The blocks were set so perfectly on this masterpiece of ancient engineering that I could do little more than stand, mouth agape, in perplexed amusement and deep thought. First of all, how much manual labor must it have taken to transport these massive quantities of raw rock? How precise must those cuts have been for it to withstand so many centuries of weather and wars? How’d they manage to keep the water constantly flowing so as to quench the thirst of the entire town? Whose big idea was this anyway? Little time was wasted in pondering these questions though – this was after all a day trip. The clock was ticking, our time was waning, and I still had a castle, a cathedral, and a cuchinillo to catch.