Sevilla

March 13, 2011 1:02 PM local time

Yesterday, my friends from class, Ida and Adam, and I went to Sevilla on an excursion arranged by a company who does such things for our school and other language schools. In addition to adults from local language schools, there were 18 eighth graders from North Carolina who are in Granada on Spring Break. The students go to a language magnet K-8 school. In K-3, they are taught solely in the new language (Spanish, French, German, Chinese, or Japanese). After third grade, they begin having other a few other lessons in English. So the kids on the trip had been studying Spanish since Kindergarten and seemed to know a lot. They, however, still behaved like eighth graders and I think all the adults on the bus were ready to make them walk the 240 kilometers home from Sevilla.

Sevilla was very pretty and we were all wondering if perhaps that’s where we should have studied. It was very large, however, and I’m sure we were seeing the most picturesque parts. We visited the riverfront, Royal Palace, Cathedral, and Plaza of Spain. The Plaza of Spain was definitely the biggest plaza I’ve ever seen and it had a moat in which one could take a boat ride. The palace was extremely large with mostly Islamic decoration (because the Catholic king admired that style) and huge gardens.

When the trip was concluding, Ida and I decided to use the restroom. The only restrooms in our vicinity were similar to porta-potties but were actually small electrical toilet cabins. You had to pay 20 cents for the door to open (it slid open on its own and appeared to be hydraulic or something) and then you could go in and use the facilities. Something was not functioning right with the “Water Closet” as they call it, however, and the door was open but would not take our coins. So, I went first and I pulled the door shut (difficult but not impossible) and did my business. Ida went next. Again, she was able to slide the door shut with some effort. Shortly into doing her business, however, the door began to slowly open and I was unable to pull it shut. It was me versus the electronic door and I lost. Of course, this was not a normal sized door, it was the handicap WC, so the door was 4-5 feet in length. There was poor Ida doing her business with the 5 foot door open and all in the park staring in. I tried to cover the door with my coat but you can imagine how well this worked. Within ten minutes, we were laughing about it so hard that we were crying.

The ironic thing is, Ida and I had just remarked that things had gone pretty smoothly for us today. In the past, we’ve had some problems with cultural barriers such as:

• Having to pay $20 for FREE tapas
• Going to the Mexican restaurant and having to wait 25 minutes after the scheduled opening time for it to open
• Going to the Mexican restaurant 40 minutes after the posted opening time and being told they would open in 5 minutes
• Going to the Mexican restaurant for 1 euro margaritas and being told that 1 euro margaritas were only for supper and not lunch after having waited for them to open
• Going to the Mexican restaurant at supper and being told the 1 euro margaritas were only for original flavor

There have been others but I cannot recall them at this time. Needless to say, Ida and I should never comment that things are going pretty smoothly or one of us will end up having their ass exposed to a park full of people.

This coming Thursday, I will be heading to Italy to meet up with other teachers and students from my previous job. It should be an interesting time. I am most looking forward to sleeping in a bed larger than twin size and taking some very long very hot showers without feeling guilty.