Finishing School and Summer Camp

Where do I begin? It's been loads of months since the last time that I wrote absolutely anything for my blog. I wish I could chalk it up to not having been writing anything, but that is not the case at all. In fact I spent the last couple of months writing a lot, mostly about my travels and out of boredom when I would get caught waiting on something, not unlike now (I'm currently waiting on my ride to the airport). I was for most of this past academic year at a school by the name of Principe Don Felipe which is named after the present Crown Prince of Spain. It's a nice school and I genuinely enjoyed my time there. I wasn't sure whether I would be returning to Spain, so I didn't sign back up for the program again and let the March deadline to do so go past me. Around April, I started to have the desire to remain in Spain for another school year. Both due to the fact it was far too late to return to Don Felipe and a host of personal reasons I was glad to be not returning to that particular school. I hope, and don't think, I burned any bridges leaving. The school was nice enough to provide me with a group of parting gifts that ended up being very useful this past summer. A t-shirt that says "La Roja" for the Spanish national team and a guide to the Camino de Santiago.

After about week off I started an English speaking summer camp that ended up being in Talvara de la Reina in Castilla La mancha. About 7 counselors and 2 support staff were responsible for group of about 80 kids. At times it was a really good time, I genuinely enjoyed trying to teach kids who were 13-15yrs of age for the 2 weeks I was with them. The problems mostly stemmed from the exceedingly poor management of camp by the umbrella corporation Pueblo Ingles which is affiliated with the larger company of Vaughan Systems. We started out short staffed because they couldn't get people enough people to work the first two weeks of July which is what we were doing. San Fermin, the fiesta in Pamplona that is so famous for the running of the bulls happens in the early part of July. The World Cup was playing too and I was apprehensive about working during it on the off chance that Spain would come out the victors.



Despite one the rules of the camp being that we were not going to watch a lot of TV, we made an exception to spend time watching the games. The first couple of games with Spain playing this or that other team, a lot the kids didn't really care. They was a large portion of them not anywhere near the room that had the large TV. But when the final Championship game came around everyone was in the room cheering when they could but mostly holding their breath. Spain was playing Netherlands and it wasn't the best game of football/soccer I've ever seen. The Dutch played very dirty and the amount of yellow cards that were handed out in the first half allow was inexcusable. After 90 minutes, the passing of stopage time, and then two 15 minute extra periods, Iniesta a player for Barca scored the only goal for Spain of the match. The kids that we had been teaching, went nuts and I mean nuts, you could barely see the 70 inch television with all the jumping and celebrating that was going on in front of it. The Dutch tried in vain to make up for the deficit, but it just didn't happen in the little time they had left. Iniesta's goal would stand as the only one of the match. I've had a number of what I would classify as surreal moments in my life, the election of Barack Obama as president being one of them, but Spain winning the World Cup the celebrating was crazy. I really, really wish that I had not been working that night. We counselors were still in charge of the kids and couldn't celebrate in an adult type fashion. The party for the kids lasted until 3 am and quite a few of them complained a great deal about having to go to bed that early. I couldn't really blame them, it was huge moment for their country, at least within the lense of sport. Spain had never won the World Cup before, it remains to be seen that they will win again, but that's four years from now, so who honestly knows?

With the late nights, activity planning, getting up earlier than the kids, and the constant responsibilty I was a little tired. I spent the next week in July mostly just sitting around the apartment of a friend, not doing anything and watching too much TV. It's amazing how much I missed the personal space and the tranquility of being able to be by myself. I spent a little bit of time trying to get ready for the Camino de Santiago that I had wanted to start right after I finished the camp. I after about 5 days back in Madrid I was ready to go. I got down to the bus station the day before I thought the bus would be leaving for Tarbes. Tarbes is a small French town a little over the border of Spain and France. Lourdes is a famous pilgrimage destination that is near to Tarbes. Lourdes is where I was going to attempt to start the walking portion of my journey to Santiago de Compostela.

I think that's where I'm going to leave it for now, this entry has all ready made up for the lack of them over the last few months. The few people I've known that have actually told me that they read the accounts of my life here, will have to wait to hear the rest of my journeys this summer.