BRAIN TRAINING
SPANISH FOR 'ADULTS'
IN NERJA, YOU WILL REALLY LERAN
The offer of treats you can give yourself is absolutely huge, because never before have there been so many ideas for people over 50, for instance, to still become really physically fit. Even the study of the enormous amount of information on nutrition, constantly updated by nutrition experts, can be regarded as a real hobby.
But where is our head in all this, our brain? Is there nothing to be done there? There is! Are you thinking: I had always suspected it, really, but now it has also been in a top magazine: ‘An interesting job keeps one healthy – and early retirement may be a fatal step towards intellectual decline’, it says in ‘Der Spiegel’. Now, though, we can happily put a stop to this, and maybe even become smarter than we already were, as ‘people who learn a foreign language change their brains ... those who drill in vocabulary at a later age considerably increase the density of their brain cells.’
So now, which language shall it be? Of course, the most important language worldwide, after English (which most of us know already, anyway), is Spanish. Finally being able to say more than ’Gracias’, ’Una serveza , por favor’ or ’dos tinto’ when we are on holiday, or maybe have a monothematic conversation about football (or flowers and recipes) with the neighbour.
The Costa del Sol, I thought, would be just the thing for me: sun, water, nice people, and the food is right as well (tapas!).
On the Internet I then found a pretty-looking place on the eastern Costa del Sol, which, in addition, has a promising language school: Nerja and the Escuela de Idiomas.
In the wide offer – from so-called ‘one-to-one’ to intensive courses and specialised courses focussed on e.g. business, trade or tourism – I found it: the Club 50+ course, something for ‘adults’: a two-week special package with Spanish classes in the morning and a variety of activities in the afternoon.
The Internet booking was done quickly. For a place to sleep, I chose the school’s student hotel “La Residencia” – also, because there contact with most of the other students seemed to come naturally (this was indeed the case). A ‘fellow student’ was staying with a host family and was so delighted with the lady of the house’s cooking, that she must have gone home with a few extra pounds.
The first impression of this small town Nerja, almost lovingly called ‘pueblo’ (village) by its inhabitants, was nearly overwhelming: a little, surveyable paradise, which, year after year, is forced to pass its resistance test in August, when there are summer holidays in Spain as well.
The first impression of the Escuela de Idiomas made me think of a ‘familiar atmosphere’; the second, however, was one of ‘professionalism’. On the first day, the applicants for the Club 50+ met each other in the school garden – the new ones feeling a little awkward, the more experienced ones (who had obviously been through similar experiences before) looking more relaxed. One by one, we were called in for the level test and finally found each other split up into two groups: one for beginners and one for a slightly more advanced students. I ended up in the latter group, together with a Finnish lady who, delighted, could not stop talking about the many similarities there are between her language and Spanish, and three Germans with a great eagerness to learn. Our teacher, Francisco, seemed to have identified our strengths and our weaknesses very quickly and was not put out of countenance, although at the same time he treated his ‘flock’ in a very sensitive way. Three hours a day, we had to concentrate – something which was not all that easy at the beginning. But as we now know that the little grey cells regenerate, we do not really mind anymore. For two hours – interrupted by a short coffee/refreshment break in the garden/cafeteria, it was about grammar (the compulsory exercise); in the third hour, it was the turn of the free exercise: we brought newspaper articles to class, which often even led to heated discussions. Honestly, the two weeks just flew by – also because the afternoon activities were, without exception, extremely interesting: whether a flamenco seminar, a visit to Nerja’s impressive stalactite caves, wine-tasting (by Paco, who turned out to be a real expert in the matter), a seminar about bull-fighting, a visit to one of Andalusia's most beautiful white-washed villages, Frigiliana, or the cooking class, in which Daniel, the teacher of the 50+ beginner course, gave the job of professional paella cook a try for the first time in his life ... and, according to the public’s unanimous opinion, performed this job quite charmingly and almost to perfection. Speaking of Daniel, he and teacher Laura were also the ‘tour guides’ in charge of the trip on Saturday, which this time was to Seville. More often, these trips are to Malaga or Granada.
Conclusion: Nerja and the Escuela de Idiomas are worth more than one trip. The unanimous opinion of us ‘advanced’, as well as that of the ‘beginners’, was excellent – with special mention to the teachers, who were both professional and very relaxed. Next time, maybe we will plan another two-week Club 50+ course and combine it with a one-, two- or even three-week ‘cultural holiday’ for further language study, because this whole region is so worth seeing, hearing and tasting, that one should definitely devote more intensive study to Andalusia.
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