Rest of the week in Spain

The week in Spain with the students was good, the weather was kind to us. The students were a good bunch and worked hard. They had one big evening really in the week and then just worked and behaved for the rest of the week, at least up until the second to last night.

I left them in the Pizza restaurant at about midnight. From there they managed to find the disco and most of them made it back by 3am. I was then woken up by lots of noise in the streets at about 5.30, I lay in bed listening to the shouting and I at first thought it was the students, then I heard some Spanish, and then some Norwegian, what was going on?

It was all very loud. I looked out and there was a couple of our guys, exteremly trashed with some Spanish girls. That was fine but why do they have to shout? I had told them to be quite in the hotel – that was the one rule that they have to obey. I considered getting up and bollocking them but I couldn’t be arsed, so I just lay there thinking, fuck this, I don’t need this stress. Its not the work, or the lack of sleep, it’s the hassle of feeling bad about these idiots waking the whole street and all the other hotel guests. I just thought why am I bothering with all this?

Next morning I thought it through in my mind – they had been told not to make noise in the hotel and they were not in the hotel. They had worked pretty hard and deserved to let off a bit of steam. It was not like I have never been out partying on a field trip and its pretty cool that they have hooked up with some locals. And what’s more it’s not my problem, they are adults! Its my fucked up British reserve that makes me disproportionally angry when people are loud and inconsiderate in the street at night. In Bergen (or Oslo or where ever) on almost any night of the week and especially at the weekends drunk people shout at each other at 3am and nobody seems to be bothered, its just a fact of living in town, so why does it make me angry?

After breakfast, down at the classroom they all looked fresh as daisies. Even the two guys and the girl who had been out until 6am didn’t look that bad – god I want to be 22 all over again. So I mellowed a bit and I read them the riot act just for good measure. They look genuinely shocked and a bit hurt. We headed to the field and they all put in a good days work.

Then last night we went for a big meal, in the square and everyone was on good form. They are a really nice bunch of people and I happy to have run this course with them.