Group C.
Well, I think this is Group C. The semester we were in Ávila, students were divided into three groups and every Monday, they would rotate for supper at one of the faculty’s apartments. This is the third group to visit our house, regardless of what they were officially numbered.
Our first cycle through the three groups, we got pizza from the Domino’s just around the corner from our apartment. The young man who worked the counter and I would work through our limited Spanish (me) and English (him) and then resort to pointing and pulling out Google Translate to make an order. I’m not sure how much he enjoyed the process, but I grew to love the opportunity to perhaps get a little better at ordering something as simple as pizza.
One of the realities of food in Spain, particularly fast food was that something was just a little bit different. Ordering a Big Mac felt like home, because it looked and for the most part, tasted like a Big Mac, but something not quite “normal.” I feel like it was typically the cheese, primarily because Spain doesn’t have American cheese. (Well…duh!) But Domino’s was very, very close. To watch the students eat it, you would assume it was exact!
After a meal, we would often play games, our favorite being an adapted version of “Ransom Notes.” Using ideas I came up with for sentence prompts and a box of Poetry Tile Fridge Magnets, we would create “sentences” with whatever random words we had been given. The creativity of the students was amazing!
For instance, when asked to describe the weather for this day, one year ago, the result was…
And earlier in the semester, when asked to describe Ávila, someone wrote:
Those who have been there I think would agree.
The joy of getting together, eating, and laughing with all of the groups of students is one of the things we still think back on, a year or more later.