Mi Escuela
Sep 9th, 2013 by willmarks
My Spanish classes have begun at the Don Quijote School, 2 kilometers from home, a 10-15 minute bike ride (many stoplights) or 20-25 minute walk. Almost 20 years have passed since I last sat in the classroom. I don’t miss the nightmares, which seemed to last until recently—showing up completely unprepared for a test or having one hour left to write a 10 page essay (some of this not a dream but reality in college). Well, now it is different, with no pressure (some self-applied though, I need to learn this language), no mid-terms, no nightmares…yet. I signed up for 6 weeks, 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. 5 days/week; here we go.
There are 5 other students in my class, with 2 from Germany, and the others from Switzerland, Brazil, and Romania, all here on vacation, and all signed up for 1-2 weeks. On average, my five classmates speak 3 languages, with Spanish the planned fourth. During our coffee break, the German female, age mid-20s, told me, “I have wanted to live in a U.S. suburb since I was 10, even before I started watching Desperate Housewives…and the German suburbs are just not the same.”
I have no familiarity with this language but am excited to learn. As I walked up to the school on day one, the feeling was exhilarating with my backpack, shorts, flip flops. I felt young, if only for a few minutes before meeting my younger classmates; maybe I sort of fit in, even though I didn’t join my new friends at the club at midnight? Seriously, I’m cool (muy chulo), reading glasses aside.
