Hello Everyone,
The middle week of our Spain adventure was dedicated to the VaughnTown language school, in a small town, called Belmonte, southwest of Madrid, at about 2500 ft elevation. Belmonte is on a hill in the middle of a very large, very flat, agricultural area, growing grapes, wheat and olives. At the top of the hill stands the wonderfully preserved 16th century Belmonte Castle. Our splendid accommodations were in a hotel built in a former palace standing on the grounds of a previous castle. I had no idea what this week was to include, but, if you had told me I would learn how to dance the Macarena, at 1:00 AM, in a Disco under a spinning mirrored ball, in this sleepy little town, I would have said you were nuts!
The language school was for Spaniards who wanted to improve their English comprehension skills. During the week no Spanish was to be spoken. Our part, along with the other “Anglos”, was to SPEAK to the Spaniards, in our native English accent, so they could learn to understand it with better comprehension. In this program there were 12 Spaniards and 16 Anglos that were matched up in various activities throughout the week.
We boarded a bus at the meeting point in Madrid at 10:00 AM, to meet with our new Spanish friends and the other Anglos. They asked us to pick a Spaniard out of the group for conversation on the 2 hour bus ride to Belmonte. I got lucky and spotted a delightful, twenty-something, in the back of the line with a nice smile on her face. Paula and I boarded the bus together and didn’t stop talking until we reached our destination. Her father was a cardiac surgeon and she already “knew a lot about Seattle” because she watched Gray’s Anatomy religiously, dubbed in Spanish.
Most of the Spaniards were middle aged professionals, 4 of them were twenty-somethings (attending from a 5 month long Mastering English program) and a couple were near sixty. They all had been trained in English, but many spoke with a, sometimes difficult to understand, Spanish accent and often had difficulty understanding different English accents. Some were better than others, but all were good enough to successfully communicate with us in English.
The Anglo group was mostly older retired professionals, with a sprinkling of fifty-somethings. Two were from Australia (sporting a strong Aussie accent), a couple were from Atlanta (speaking in a southern drawl), a couple of other Americans were from Oregon and the remainder were from England (speaking the Queens English). There was quite a range of English spoken during the week and most of the Spaniards were very nervous from the start. However, “breaking the ice” with them was easy, the activities were fun and everyone got along splendidly. Some of the Anglos had been on these programs several times before and one woman was doing it for her 19th time! Only five of us were here for the first time.
Most of the week was devoted to 50 minute one-on-one conversation sessions, sprinkled with conference call and telephone practice. Carmen, the “event manager”, ran the program like clockwork and Alba (a professional actress), the “master of ceremonies”, made sure everyone was having lots of fun. Every morning and afternoon they posted 4 Phrasal Verbs (like “carry on” or “try out” or “turn up”) and 4 Idioms (like “face the music” or “rings a bell” or, my personal favorite, “in the doghouse”) for us to discuss in our one-on-one conversations. Spaniards are mystified by Phrasal Verbs because there is nothing like it in their language. Then, we had lots of fun using them in our casual conversations throughout the week. The weather was perfect the whole week and we spent most of our conversation sessions either walking through the town, over to the windmills or up to the castle. As it turned out, the talking was easy and natural, and there was never any time when there wasn’t something interesting to talk about.
Each afternoon there was some activity involving speaking and interacting with each other, and every evening ended with some sort of entertainment before supper, provided by members of the group, either voluntarily or by being “drafted” into it by Alba. One evening Alba provided the fun by dressing up like a seductive witch and mixing up a flaming caldron of “Queimada” (mostly 80 proof alcohol with a sprinkling of cinnamon, lemon, sugar, and coffee beans) for us to drink. I couldn’t believe what she was doing with the flames. There’s a 40 second movie in the photo gallery if you are interested. Our day started at 9:00 AM, with an hour long buffet breakfast, paused at 2:00 PM for a three course dinner followed by a 2 hour siesta (of course, this is Spain, right?) and ended after a three course supper at 9:00 PM. Way too much good food for me. I’ll be on an immediate weight loss program when I return home.
Carmen encouraged us to have fun even if it meant changing the script or ad-libbing part of an activity a little. After all, the main objective was to just talk. It didn’t matter so much what we talked about. One fun exercise was for me to call a conference room where 4 Spaniards were posing as mayors of Spanish cities. I was supposed to be Mr Rockefeller looking for a city in Spain to locate a new casino. So, I surprised them by changing my name to Donald Trump, looking for a Spanish city to build a new “huge” Trump Tower Casino. We had lots of fun making sure that there was an airport nearby each city large enough to land Air Force One, etc. Everyone in the world knows President Trump by now, many of them maybe even better than some Americans. Each evening after supper I showed card tricks to those eating at my table and on the last night, at the entertainment program, I debuted my “never before performed in Spain” magic string trick, where I have someone in the audience cut a peace of string into two pieces and then I “chew” it back together again in my mouth. It was a real crowd pleaser. Many of you who know me have probably seen this trick before. If you haven’t, let me know and I’ll show you sometime. 😉
After dinner most of us (especially the Anglos) went to bed, but many of the folks ended up in the bar, speaking “slurred” English, until the early morning hours. On our last night, Alba invited us all to a little “disco” bar she had discovered down in the village, starting at 11:30 PM! It had a rotating mirrored ball and strobe lights, all around a small dance floor. We all showed up, ordered a drink and waited to see what would happen. Suddenly, with music blaring, Alba walks out onto the dance floor and starts twirling. Pretty soon everyone was out there, including me! Those of you who know me know that I never dance any more. I probably haven’t danced in 15 or 20 years. But yes, this night I “swallowed my pride” (one of our week’s Idioms) and danced the night away. The twenty-somethings taught us how to dance the Macarena (which I had never seen before) and I got the hang of it just about the time the music ended. We left about 1:00 AM, but some of the others closed the place down around 5:00 AM. The Spaniards are really late night people. I guess that’s why they need that afternoon siesta every day.
On my list of fun and rewarding life experiences, I would rank this week at the language school very high. You are helping people from another culture improve their English skills, making new friends and exposing people from around the world to a view of Americans other than what they get from watching TV. And all for the price of a ticket to Europe. Everything else is covered. If you have a week to spare in your busy life, I highly recommend giving a language school a try. You will likely treasure the experience. We’re already looking into opportunities in Italy and China.
I have included a few pix and a video in the photo gallery for your viewing pleasure.
If you haven’t seen Carol’s blog about the language school, you can check it out here:
https://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2017/05/in-spain-with-vaughntown-ole.html
Next stop is Valencia and then up the coast to Barcelona. After all that dancing I only hope my knees hold out for the rest of the trip. More from there next time.
Later…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol
Belmonte Photos
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