At Home, part 29

As the school year neared its end, there were some things for me to work on. Dolo, my Spanish teacher, wanted me to take the DELE—the Diploma de español como lengua extranjera (Diploma in Spanish as a Foreign Language). It was an examination given at three levels, and she wanted me to take the middle level, the Básico. I’d have to go into the city to take it, but I was willing, because I was proud of my progress in Spanish and ready to have it recognized. It would be good for the language school, too, to show that they could prepare students to pass the test.

I went to International House in Madrid, which was a different language school, and took the test there. That was good for me but not so good for Dolo. I passed, but I also took the opportunity to look around the school and see what they offered, and it was obvious that they outclassed my little suburban school by a mile. There were intensive courses, advanced courses, and executive courses. There were students from all over the world, of all ages. There were schedules to fit every need. And the location was great—near the center of Madrid, a block away from a Metro stop, not far from my gym. I resolved to sign up in the fall.

I had to do some summer planning, too. My sister, Sally, was going to visit in July, with her husband Doug and her two sons—Danny, 8, and Scott, 5. “I think the kids would hate a sightseeing vacation,” I said. “Is there anything else you’d like to do?”

“Can we go to a beach?” Sally asked. “I think that would be fun.”

I thought for a minute. “Let me ask Ana where to go,” I said. “She’ll know.”

She had just the place for us. “I keep my trailer over near Tarragona, just south of Barcelona,” she said. “The place is Playa Montroig. We’ve been going there for years. The kids loved it when they were little, and they still love it. It’s not the most beautiful beach in the world, it’s nothing fancy, but people come from all over Europe and camp there.”

“I don’t know if we’re up for camping,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t have to camp. They rent out trailers like mine, and they also have little cabins you can rent. It’s not expensive, it’s really relaxing, and they have their own entertainment and shops and so on.”

This sounded fine to me, so I called the place and booked our week at the beach. Mike would have to work, so he wouldn’t be with us, but the rest of us were set.

Ana also instructed me on how to live through Madrid’s beastly summer heat. Though it was not humid, it was incredibly hot—a real desert heat—and the houses were not air-conditioned. “You have to keep your blinds closed until it’s dark,” she said. “Then open everything. Keep it open until about ten in the morning, and then close everything up tight again. You have to keep the sun out.” The other part of the routine I learned was to stay in a bathing suit during the day and jump into the pool to cool off whenever necessary.

The summer was starting to fall into place. School ended in mid-June, and Sally would come in mid-July. In August I would take the kids to the States so Julie could go to camp in New Hampshire for two weeks, and Lisa and I would do some traveling—“Camp Mom,” we called it. Mike would stay in Spain most of the summer, but his friend Jon Powell would visit him for a week, and they planned to travel north to Galicia and the Picos de Europa mountains together.

That left a gap of about a month when the girls would have nothing to do. I knew they would get bored hanging around all day, even with the pool, so I asked at the American School if there were any summer classes.

“We always have a soccer clinic and a Spanish class,” the principal told me. Perfect, I thought—my non-athletes could work on their language skills. Both girls seemed amenable to the idea, especially after we roped the Scarritt girls and Rosanne Kruger into taking Spanish with them.

It was just a few hours each morning, a small class, very relaxed. “I love taking Spanish with Fernando in the summer!” Lisa chirped after the first week. “He’s not as strict as he is during the school year. He’s a lot of fun!” They played games, learned songs, and generally took it easy.

Then came the afternoons of that late June and early July, when I had the most satisfying experiences of all my time in Spain. The girls and I would get together with the Scarritts and the Krugers each afternoon at one house or the other, along with other friends or neighbors, whoever was around. The kids would play in the pool and the women would sit and talk, and relax, and relax some more. The weather was always beautiful, and life slowed down to a pace I had not experienced in the United States. There never seemed any need to get up and do anything. Even if a father returned from work there was no pressure to get dinner together, because we had entered Spanish time, and dinner was hours and hours away. The fathers were smart and changed out of their suits and came and sat with us as we watched the shadows move across the yard, felt the warm breeze, listened to the happy children.