European Travels Part I: Architecture and Friends

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I’ve been planning a trip since last year to celebrate my graduation. Originally, it was going to be a two/three-month journey ending with a three-week safari and trek through Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. However, due to budgetary constraints and my friend’s bachelor party over July 4th weekend, I shortened it to six weeks, from May 17th to June 30th. The main goals of my trip were to see the architecture I studied during graduate school and reconnect with friends I hadn’t seen in years. My itinerary included three key stops: Tomelloso in Spain, where I first lived and taught English; London, to see friends I taught English with in Korea; and Brussels, to visit a Spanish friend from Jerez de la Frontera, the second place I lived in Spain

Tomelloso is where I consider the beginning of my time abroad. Although I was only there for nine months, I found a second family and have stayed connected with them for the past decade. Visiting Tomelloso was the main reason I went to Spain and the first stop on my journey.

In Tomelloso, I was the first foreign teacher at their school through the BEDA program. Perhaps this is why after all these years and the subsequent foreign teachers who followed, they remember me fondly.

I arrived in Spain on Friday, May 17th, and spent Saturday and Sunday there. Like perennials as spring approaches, words, phrases, places and names of people in Tomelloso that have laid dormant for the last several years, blossomed as I found myself there once again. I visited occasionally while living in Jerez, but I hadn’t seen some people in seven years, and others in nine.

During my time in Tomelloso, I became close with several other teachers, their families, and their friends. Juanjo, the principal of the school, picked me up from Madrid in 2014 and brought me to Tomelloso. Throughout the year, I grew close with his family, including his wife, who is also a teacher, and their three children who attended the school. I often joined them for meals and excursions, visiting festivals, castles, and even Juanjo’s hometown of Cartagena, where we toured the maritime museum and the ancient Roman amphitheater. I also went to their house to cut my hair, it was a cost-saving measure and a way to feel at home. During my recent visit, I had lunch with them on Sunday. It was incredible to see how much their kids had grown, with one still in school, one in college, and another about to finish a Master’s degree.

Another teacher and their family I became close with is Monse. Tomelloso would have been different had I not become close to any of the people that I did, but I can say that without Monse, it would not have been the same when and lived there and my recent visit. I’m not really sure how it happened, because I didn’t teach any classes with her and at that time my Spanish was pretty bad rendering me unable to really communicate and comprehend, but we became close and she became like a second mother to me. She opened her house and took care of me like I was one of her two daughters. On my recent visit, she did everything for me. She let me stay in their apartment in the town square with her two daughters, a few days before she put me in contact with her daughter who was driving down Saturday morning and I went with her to Tomelloso, she made sure that I had everything I needed, she made me dinner and she took me to the bus station when I was leaving. Leaving her felt like saying goodbye to my family. 

Mercedes and her family is another one I became close with. Not only did I teach private classes to her two sons, I also taught them to her and a few other adults. She’d often make me dinner on the nights that I had classes with her sons. She introduced me to others who I would become friends with, including her husband and two who would later visit and stay with my family in New York on a visit. Whenever the local bar in town had concerts, she would invite me and I’d always go. She became a friend and I too became a part of her family. In my recent visit, I saw Mercedes a few times, for breakfast on Sunday morning and at a birthday party I went to Saturday afternoon. After breakfast we went to one of the local bars and on the way she called a few of the teachers who came and met us. I also saw her two sons and I couldn’t believe how much they had grown. 

Alberto was my closest friend in Tomelloso and another teacher at the school. We shared many activities, from running and biking to attempting to teach me how to drive a manual car. He even saved me from getting lost in Cuenca during a festival. One weekend, I went to his hometown of Cuenca for a celebration where we stayed in his parent’s house. I don’t remember what the celebration was for. Every Spanish town and city has their own, but I got so drunk that I wandered away from him and ended up in a random part of the city. If you have ever gone to Spain, you know their towns are like Labyrinths and Cuenca is famous for being the city where the houses are on cliffs. I wandered into somebody who happened to know Alberto, and he called saying that he had some foreigner with him and a short time later Alberto came and got me, like a parent picking their kid up from daycare. 

His wife is an amazing artist and painter. On one of my visits to their house, I remarked at this amazing watercolor of Cuenca on their wall. When I left Tomelloso, they gifted me one of those paintings and it’s one that I treasure. He graciously found time to see me, even though his wife’s family was also visiting. On Saturday, he invited me to a friend’s surprise birthday party, where I also saw Mercedes and on Sunday evening, he, his son and I took a visit to the castle near Tomelloso. 

Another friend I was able to see was Tacho. Tacho is the nephew of one of the teachers at the school and she put us in contact when I was living there. Tacho, didn’t live in Tomelloso, but rather in Madrid and over the years he became a close friend. If he was in Madrid or when he came to Tomelloso, I’d see him. In my recent visit, I met up with him for lunch the day I arrived to Madrid and then later that evening we went to a rooftop bar with a friend of his. I had never been in any of Madrids rooftop’s before. When I returned back to Madrid on Monday, I stayed at his apartment and memories came flooding back. That night I persuaded him to try a vegetarian Spanish restaurant and we took a walk to the Egyptian temple, something I had always wanted to see, but never had. 

Lastly, there is everyone else who I taught with. They all played an important role while I was there and even though I haven’t seen some of them in nine years, it was like I had never left. I visited the school the Monday morning before I left and got to see everyone. It meant a lot that they were happy to see me and remember the time I was there so fondly.