TEFLees in Spain

Today is a gorgeous sunny day in Madrid. As I chat with TEFLees from the UK, I feel smug about our good weather, as if it is a personal accomplishment of mine during my office admin time. Like blogging and creating facebook networks and soaking in gossip and offering unsolicited advice and secretly giving away chocolate was has been gifted to the office, bragging about our fabulous climate has become an unwritten task of my job.

They (the unnamed smart people who we so often plagiarize) say that sunlight makes you less depressed. I don’t know if it’s necessarily the vitamin D I’m soaking up from the sunshine or the terrace drinking culture of Springtime in Madrid, but I do know that all of the TEFLees’ spirits — and mine — have been high the last few weeks.

The Spanish are attracted to the streets. The first ray of sun streaked through the clouds, and suddenly there were tables of beer and sangria on every corner. And, as is appropriate, people flocked to them.

My other favorite thing about Spring is Semana Santa. I love that Madrid closes down for a week… and it’s certainly great for the teachers. It’s been fun listening to all of our TEFLees talk about the places they are going and the things they are doing. Cheap bus trips to the coast, 15 euro hostels, easyjet to Paris, walking tours of the Camino de Santiago in the north, Geneva, Prague, off to a mountain village of Madrid.

Spring is a time for new beginnings. For travel, for resolutions, for lighter jackets and white sandals. And apparently, a time for calling the course administrator at the TEFL school of your choice to complain about British weather, so she remembers to relish her own:).

I love to travel.

I love airports.

I love layovers and stewardesses and suitcases and new stamps in my passport.  I love duty-free vodka and packaged sandwiches and earphones that only work on planes because they have two prongy things.

I enjoy making friends with the beautiful Danish men who may sit next to me and giving directions to confused people and pulling pretend-looking money from ATMs.  I like watching people hug and cry and yell in foreign languages and making up stories about them in my head.

Most of all, I appreciate the stage of transition.  I thrive in-between.  I relish being missing-in-action — not being in a particular place or with certain people or with any responsibilities.  Maybe traveling is special to me because I can’t — and I’m not expected to — accomplish much more than arriving at point B.   This is almost mandatory space to reflect and anticipate.  Cushion.  Buffer.

Time to think about my life and my plans and my friends and my TEFLees.  Time to think back on all that has changed — and all that has stayed the same — since my last introspective airport terminal appointment.  Time to appreciate how lucky I am to be on the way to my destination or on the way from my origin.  Time to hide in a hole with gobs of other people just like me.

That’s life in Spain to me.  The big standstill transition where I am allowed to relax, spend too much money, meet strangers, and think.  Life in Madrid is my layover that gives me time off the record to enjoy the journey.

Living in Spain has a spring break quality for young Americans teaching English in Madrid.  The cheap and generous portions of alcohol, the communal living quarters, the constant opportunity to party, the excellent weather and beautiful people.  And, most importantly, what happens in Spain stays in Spain.

Reality overrides the vacation feeling sometimes.  We learn that no one in the city proper seems to feel obligated to pick up after their dog.  We learn that it does, in fact, rain in Spain – and not only on the plains (though still little enough to love our sunny city).  We learn that we cannot complain about the rain to your classes because they will lecture us on being grateful that we are not in a drought.

But overall, we can’t shake the aura of good times, sunshine, and summertime – all year round.  Maybe that’s why TEFL graduation parties can be so ridiculous.  After all, the TEFL is intensive by definition.  Letting off steam is to be expected.

And like spring break, TEFL graduations precipitate stories… and laughter… and gossip… and… maybe a little bit of embarrassment.  And maybe the important thing to remember is that laughing at ourselves is what makes us a success in a foreign country.  Our failures and embarrassments are what make us human, what make us vulnerable and approachable and loveable.

Laughing at yourself as you make mistakes in the Spanish language is what prevents you from giving up entirely.  Laughing at yourself making a mistake in class is what gives you the strength to keep teaching.  Laughing at yourself when you step in canine droppings is what stops you from going home to change and being late to work.  And laughing at yourself in life out of your natural habitat is what helps you love Madrid for all it is.

And as the rain washes the dog feces from the sidewalk in front of the entrance to our building, we begin again.  A fresh start.  Which is why we came here.

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.