TEFLees in Spain

It’s been a long time coming, I know, but what good would I be as a procrastinator if I failed to at least put the finishing touches on our autumn trip to Toledo? Better late than never I guess, so if you want to read the tail in its entirety, back on up a couple pages in the blog – and while you’re there, why not just read through the rest of the posts until you make it back to this one? Take a minute to walk a couple miles (or months) in the shoes of an English teacher in Madrid – from humble beginnings and rookie mistakes, to veteran’s wisdom on all the English language has to offer. You won’t regret it! Anyway, back to the story…

So, after all the effort to find a quiet café to ourselves, and after a couple pitchers of refreshing sangria, we were ready to head back into the deepening afternoon shadows of Toledo’s echoing alleyways. But, as always, there was one bump in the road. The seemingly friendly barmen, through mischievous intentions or bad calculating, had somehow managed to completely butcher our bill. The chicken scratch recording of our orders scribbled with all the carelessness of a doctor’s signature were no help as we argued our way through the menu of prices. This, I have learned about Spain: if you’re in a touristy town, in a touristy restaurant, speaking touristy Spanish to the camareros, then you may as well have a bull’s eye-dollar sign tattooed on your forehead. In other words, if you don’t speak Spanish well, then watch out because you’re bound to get taken for a ride. (Side note: my friend and I, when we got off the plane for the first time in Madrid, got charged 55 Euros for a 25 Euro cab ride – with no Spanish whatsoever it’s hard to argue, so watch out!). Anyway, after passing the calculator and doing our best body language communications, we finally managed to punch out a number that everyone could agree upon, wave goodbye to the apologetic (caught red handed) barmen, and commence with the explorations.

With no clear direction in mind, we decided to take what I refer to as the new-to-Madrid approach, and wander aimlessly through the labyrinth of zigzagging streets until we found a place worth stopping. Foolproof in its simplicity, this plan of attack soon found us standing, high fiving in front of Toledo’s hidden gem of a tourist stop – the Museum of Torture. Now, I like art and I like history and all that jazz, but really, unless you’re writing a book or have aspirations of pursuing a career in the curator field, museums in Europe are a dime a dozen, and they tend to get old (at least for me), fast. But this, for our now dwindled group of guys, was a perfect find. So we pooled together our change, paid the four Euro cover, and went skipping merrily through.