Fundamental research pays off

We were in a bar yesterday. Part of  our research  into the local area you understand. It wasn't in the Showtime bar which was orange and chrome, nor was it in the Reserva, the one with the "Cigar Store Indian" but it was in the one with the life sized pirates. On the bar was a tattily photocopied leaflet headed "Free Education." One of the courses on offer was Spanish for Foreigners. The last day to sign up was today at anytime between 7 and 8.30 in the evening so we went and did it.

It was a strange place where we signed up. An office in a block of flats with old looking furniture and outdated office equipment but with welcoming and friendly staff who dealt with us as though we had learning difficulties. Nonetheless they told us what the process was, made sure we knew where we were going etc. My guess is that it was some sort of local charity with Local Authority funding to provide grass roots, second chance, education in a run down area. I felt a bit of a fraud but it cheered me up that the Spanish for Foreigners course of the flyer had become Spanish for Immigrants on the enrolment form - we immigrants need all the help we can get!

This means that we have now tried to sign up for three Spanish courses. The first one seemed very organised and we even did a language test. The main problem there is that they haven't offered us a course. Then there was the atempt to sign up at the Adult Education Centre as described in the entry called "Whimpering." And now attempt number three. We still have to go to their presentation which is next Monday. The women in the office said that would be "un lío" which roughly translates as chaos but we shall see.

I suspect though that we may be playing merry hell with the statistics that these people return about the number of Brits searching for Spanish courses!