Tutoring for the wealthy

Traveling from Amsterdam to Santander was a little more complicated than from Nice to Amsterdam. It was supposed to be 22 hours, and ended up being 25 after I arrived too late at my last stop to catch the first bus and had to wait a few hours for the next.
On the way, I hit Paris for a two hour layover. I asked a taxi driver to take me to the Eifel Tower and then to my next station. In broken English, Pierrey (he said to call him PY) ended up giving me a guided tour of the most beautiful city I have visited. Maybe I´ll be there again sometime this year.
Seven different trains, four countries (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain) and 25 hours after I left Amsterdam, I was in Santander for the first of my job gap year. I am taking care of a boy and teaching English to him. It felt good to be back in Spain. Familiar, as if Amsterdam had been vacation but Spain was almost like home.
Jorge, the boy I´m tutoring, is the son of the owner of a hotel, whose name is Manolo. The hotel is small but extremely posh, converted from a 17th century palace. I sleep in a house next to the hotel, and it´s just as nice. I have my own queen-size bed, my own bathroom, my own bureau, my own beautiful windows looking out over the courtyard and the two-hole golf course...it takes a little getting used to after life in hostels. I also eat with the family for breakfast and lunch, so in addition to my beautiful room I get delicious board. To see the hotel, go to http://www.palaciocaranceja.com/.
When I met Jorge and Manolo in Santander´s bus station, Jorge hugged me, yelling, ¨¡Mi amigo!¨ He´s outgoing, easy-going, and loves sports, so he´s basically perfect. Well, he hates lessons, but it´s the summer and I can´t really blame him. But if anyone has ideas for making grammar fun, send me the love.
Manolo is great as well. He´s amazingly generous -- for example, he takes me out to lunch even when Jorge is off somewhere else, and he rented a surfboard for me when he took Jorge, Jorge´s friend Javier, me, and himself to the beach. Also, he´s a really cool guy. I sit shotgun on car rides, and we shoot the breaze, the three most common topics being differences between Spain and the US, the Cataluñian and Basque independence movements, and life back home. He speaks in broken English, and I help him, and I speak in my medium-level Spanish, and he helps me.
The house in which I´m staying is actually Miguel´s. He is the hotel director, and he´s one of those gruff older men who uses playful physical violence to show their love, such as punching people lightly on the shoulder. The first night, I thanked him profusely (and quite genuinely) for giving me such beautiful living arrangements in his house. Ever since, he´s loved me and offers me beer at all hours.
The hotel, Palacio de Caranceja, is about 45 minutes by train from Santander, which is the nearest big city. Caranceja, while small, is also fun. On my second night in town, the community was holding a fiesta. Think block party, but one that starts at eight and goes until three in the morning (the kids and adults left around one, and the teenagers stayed until the end). Local taxes pay for it, so it´s pretty legit, with a DJ, a steam cannon, a foam machine, and food. It was held on the main plaza, and almost the whole town (I´m guessing about 150 people) showed up. Being American made me a celebrity, and by the end of the night I had met lots of kids. At three, I was dancing in the foam along with the other 15 of us who were still there. The DJ called last song, but when it ended, everyone pounded the stage, chanting ¨Otro, otro, otro¨ (another, another, another). The DJ played one more, and when it ended, people pounded and chanted again. This time, the DJs were really packing up, so they threw random CDs out to the crowd to appease us. I came home wet from the foam, hung my clothes up, and hit the sack happy.
And the next day, I played soccer with some of the kids I met at the party. My team lost 2-1, but I wasn´t half-bad.
I´m lucky to have found this job. I put an ad up on Craigslist offering English tutoring for room and board. Manolo called me offering amazing room, amazing board, and 300 Euros. Lucky is an understatement. This is the best, most comfortable way I could have started my gap year. The job ends in August, and I only wish it would last longer.

Oh, by the way, I have a new telephone number! This one is my permanent Spanish number: 011 34 693 254 667.