no pasa nada

Translation: no big deal.

This is my, along with probably the rest of Spain´s, favorite spanish phrase. It is so wonderful! It can be used in so many different situations! It can serve as a response to so many questions! When in doubt--no pasa nada!

What I really love about it, actually, is how much the Spaniards truly embrace the meaning of this phrase. Of course--it´s not THAT surprising. This is a laid-back country, where we have 2 hour lunch breaks, where it takes a month and a half to get a bank card, where 90 % of the population goes on vacation in August. So it only made sense when...

Okay, this is a long story that I should probably start from the beginning. My friend Nicole (who is teaching in this program in Sevilla) and I have been trying pretty much since we got here to plan a Christmas vacation extravaganza (reason number 435247 that I love my job--2 and a half weeks paid vacation in December and January!!). Our struggles with planning date back to our days in Buenos Aires (where we met studying abroad)... many trips went untraveled, because we totally SUCK at planning. Well--we had been debating for some time as to whether to go south to Morroco, or North to roam Europe. We decided in the end that Morroco wouldn´t be able to offer a very "magical" Christmas, and thus opted for the latter. We would begin with a weekend in Barcelona and exit the country by train from there. Nervous that we might miss great flight deals if we didn´t act fast, we bought two plane tickets to Barcelona in haste for the 19th of December. We chose the 19th because Nicole´s last day was the 18th, and she would need time to travel to Madrid. Note: this is NICOLE´S last day. Not mine. SO STUPID. I have school until the Tuesday the 22nd, a small detail I failed to note. This wasn´t the only hiccup we realized just days after purchasing the non-refundable tickets. Nicole found tickets from Sevilla to Barcelona for even cheaper, and that would mean that she wouldn´t have to buy a 30 Euro bus ticket to Madrid (nor spend 6 hours on a bus). No excuses--we are idiots.

But throwing away 65 Euros (the cost of both of our tickets) was just too painful. We had to figure out a way around it. So I went to Crazy Carlos. I wish I knew what Crazy Carlos´s position was in the school but I really don´t, all I can say is that he is the most ridiculously absurd 50 year old Spanish man that deals with the English assitants at my school, among other things, and I promise, more on him later. I asked him for advice..what should I do? Could I maybe try to make up the hours? Will I miss anything special? This question sparked something in my mind though, and I answered it myself. I was going to miss the Christmas nativity play and party! But before I could express my regret aloud, Carlos bellowed out--No pasa nada!!!! And continued with a brief speech in extremely broken English (he insists on speaking to us in English--because, as he says, he has a lot of doubts--which I believe means he wants to practice) about how I must be prudent, and not tell anyone about my travel plans, as I will have the flu on that Monday and Tuesday. Hahahahahahaha.

So, it only made sense when Carlos threw his hands up in the air in complete and utter apathy about my missing school two days to go party in Barcelona. No pasa nada.

So am I still going? The answer is...no. Just as Carlos did--I threw my hands up in the air and said no pasa nada to the 34 Euros down the drain. I wouldn´t miss my school´s Christmas party for the world, much less a silly plane ticket to Barcelona.