There's Life Outside Your Apartment

About two weeks ago I was feeling down about my efforts to get involved and push my language skills. I had fallen into a comfortable groove: I was content with my job and my free time (much of it more or less internal (cooking, reading, exercising)), but I needed something of a kick in the pants to get out of the routine and into new situations. Sure it is nice to have a free afternoon to relax at home, but sometimes you just have to realize “There’s Life Outside Your Apartment” –Ave Q (I thought this show was funny while I was in college, but from the far side I appreciate each song in a new way).

So I set out on foot one afternoon, no particular goal in mind, just to see what’s out there. Just before marching out of town (carefree wandering can’t last too long in a town that could fit inside a smaller cornfield) I found my way into one of the last cafébars where I tried (barely) to start conversation with the only two patrons who were chatting in mumbled Andaluz with the bartender. As I left, I wondered if I had really gained anything useful from sitting in a café by myself. I could have made my own cup of coffee (and refilled it!) and saved myself a buck. I told myself it was worthwhile, despite lacking any evidence, and began home. En route, I poked my nose around a bit, peering into the ubiquitous cafébars and figuring out which ones were populated by the English folks and which belonged to the Spanish, building a mental schema of the town. Some of my students were playing a game of pool in one; a sign advertising “Latin Dancing Lessons” decorated the door of another. Okay, here’s a chance to get out there, to meet some locals. The beginner lessons are on Monday. I marked my calendar.

Content with something to show for my afternoon, I continued up the hill to my piso. Around a familiar corner, I saw a prominent sign I had never noticed: Escuela Municipal de Musica. Hmmm. I wonder what happens there? It was about 7 or 8 and the sun was already down, so I was surprised to see people inside as I approached. Sigue I told myself, and I continued right on inside. I could hear some beginning flutists and pianists filling the air with what could marginally be called music, when I was approached by a woman with a big head of frazzled, curly hair. Moment of truth.

I find it’s best to spit something out as soon as possible when trying to speak a foreign language. This strategy doesn’t make it any easier, but if I get it in my head that I’m going to speak correctly, time stretches out and I freeze up. I can’t come up with anything. Usually all that is understood from my first words is that I don’t speak very much Spanish, so there’s no point in overthinking it. Once I’ve convinced them that I’m clueless but that I’m going to keep talking anyways, I can usually slip some significant words into my babbling and eventually convey a message. If nothing else, my transmission attempts end with my unfortunate communication partner at least understanding that they are going to have to dumb it down for me, and that’s enough.

Anyways, I came away understanding that I could sign up for private instrument lessons for just 20 euros a month and that there was a band and a choir that I could join for free. Guay. These were the opportunities that I wasn’t going to find in my relaxing afternoons at the apartment.

Two weeks later I’ve been to my first piano lesson, two lenguaje classes (and let me just say that while music is often thought to be a universal language, somehow the Spanish music lenguaje seems to be at odds with the theory I’ve learned at home) and I’ve found my place in the back row of the Albox choir. At last, I found a way to Americanize the tranquil life I had been enjoying so much.


*The dance lessons flopped. I returned on Monday, but peering through the beads (many shops prefer this relic from the 70’s to a front door for a reason that I haven’t quite yet figured out) I could see that the three elderly English couples, while probably perfectly friendly, were not the folks I had come to Spain to meet.