First week at Tandem
language school
Monday-
I felt a bit nervous about the first day of Spanish language
school for about the first 30 seconds while strangers from all over the world
sat in semi-silence. The one
advantage of age is that I’ve just stopped thinking about what kind of
impression I make on people. It’s so emotionally liberating. Time to break
the ice…we introduced ourselves till an instructor entered the room and sent us
to our assigned classes, based on test results, and our
conversational interview. There
are 5 women in my class…yup I’m the oldest by 14yrs. Most students are in their early 20’s. We have 3 hours of class with a 30 min
break in the middle. I spent the morning worrying about coordinating a visit to
immigration with Drew, and Ander (to interpret). Luckily, the contact from immigration who has been working
with the university told us we don’t have to go register with the police within
the normal 30 day period…they are now trying to fix our visas from Madrid! So I
could finish my class without distraction. (Did I mention that the LA Spanish consulate screwed up? They gave us student visas, despite submitting the proper paperwork and paying for work/residence visas, so we were in blissful ignorance until immigration contacted the university).
Tuesday-
After class Drew and I had a lovely lunch with Javier from Tecnun,
after which I ran back to school to see if I could go on the scheduled field
trip to the Alboala Boat Museum in San Pedro. I just made it.
It was a wonderful trip. We
took a city bus 10 min to San Pedro, then a tiny boat “taxi” to the picturesque
tiny seaside village of San Juan where fish restaurants abound. The museum is
new. It documents the history of “San Juan,” a Basque whaling ship that sunk in
1565 off the coast of Newfoundland.
The remains of the ship were found in the 1970’s. With the knowledge of preserving cod by salting and drying it, and the ability to avoid
scurvy by drinking sidra fermented from apples, the Basque fisherman could go
far afield to hunt whale, and fish for cod. It has been speculated that the Basques landed in North
America before the Vikings; supposedly new evidence of this has been discovered
in the last few years (documents written in Basque were found in north
America). The museum details how
they made these boats…They actually pruned the trees as they grew to achieve the
right shapes for various parts of the boat. They are now using a team of both paid workers and volunteers
to use those same age old methods to reproduce the "San Juan", with the goal of
completing it by 2016 when San Sebastian will be named "European Capital of
Culture."
Thursday-
What a wonderful night out we had discovering pinxtos with
Peter, an American volunteer carpenter at the boat museum that I met the other
day. As a fluent, Spanish speaking
foodie he was the perfect guide to take us on a gastronomic tour extraordinaire.
We went to his favorite Pintxo bars in Parte Viejo (the old part) of San
Sebastian. We feasted on everything from "gambas a la plancha" (grilled prawns),
to a plate of deliciously prepared mushrooms, giant with odd shapes resembling mushrooms out of a
fairytale prior to being cooked, to pigs ears and beef cheeks (Drew avoided the animal parts).
Friday-
First test…ugh.
It was horrible. I’m not
sure if I should say school has been humbling or humiliating. Being in class with 20 something year
olds who already speak 3 or 4 languages fluently and pick everything up very
quickly…lets just say my 50 year old synapses were not keeping up. Teachers are really good, I feel like
I’m learning a lot, and understanding more and more…best to just do the best I
can and not compare. Time for a pitcher of sangria.
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| hmmm...interesting concept. I doubt there would be much of a market for this product in the USA |
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