Awesome Spanish Moments.

Note: Most of these moments were immediately followed by one of my wild laugh attacks, and still provoke giggles every time I think about them.

1. Shut the #$%* up!!!!

Even though Ariela and I often plan and guide activities for the various classes we visit during the week, the English teachers are still always in the classroom with us. They are responsible for keeping the kids under control, and doing any disciplining that might be necessary. Now I have a lot of great classes, but Ive also had some pretty wild classes too. This specific day, the grade 7's were getting really rowdy. The teacher I was with was trying everything in the book to get them to be quiet, but nothing was working (at first I used to find this very frustrating, but lately I've just gotten used to it, and come to the realization that it's really not my fault).

Anyhow, after virtually pleading them to be quiet and listen, this teacher shouted 4 words that I didn't think Id ever hear in a classroom, "Shut the %$#* up!!"

Now, before this happened, I was standing (bored out of my mind) in the corner of the room. I might have been checking out my nails, or most likely yawning and dreaming about a café con leche. I can not explain how shocked I was when I heard the above shouted at the class. I looked up at the teacher in confusion, surely with my mouth hanging wide open and my eyes bulging out of my head. After seeing the look on my face the teacher shook their head and replied "they have no idea what it means anyway!"

What!!! After my initial reaction, I looked at the class, and sure enough, they were still doing exactly what they were doing before, and probably didn't have any idea what had just been said to them. Probably not the best way to deal with some unruly 13 year olds, but this awesome spanish moment still cracks me up everytime...


2. Fake Cig

On a night out in Valladolid while we sat in a cloud of smoke at Sinatra bar drinking big cups of beer and calimoxo, Cristina, one of our fellow teachers at Montes Obarenes, showed us an interesting fake, lemon flavored cigarette that she "smokes" sometimes to reduce the amount of real cigs she smokes. Everyone was pretty fascinated and took turns "smoking" the cigarette and saying "oh wowww, it tastes like minty lemon!"

Later on that night while Ariela and I were chatting, we noticed that when Cristina went to the bar to get another drink she'd not only left a real cigarette in the ashtray, she also had her fake cig propped on it too. We had a little laugh, and then kept on with the night. Then as we getting ready to leave the bar, we realized that Cris had her lemon cig in her hand and was smoking it like a normal one. I can't exactly explain how awesome it was to watch someone "smoke" something that both you and they know isn't real, but rest assured that I had a good 2 minute laugh attack over this ridiculous invention (that hopefully somewhat works!). Oh those spaniards...