texans on the autobahn

Stories from a chaperone of teenagers!

A few months ago it was announced that the school would be providing an opportunity for a language trip to Barcelona for the Spanish classes. Sam wanted to go and I wanted to go with him, I volunteered, and I got to go as a parent chaperone. I must have lost my mind! I had forgotten all those years of mission trips with 35 plus teeneagers, and thought it would be no problem going with only 19 of them. Please, someone, next time I say I want to go on a school trip – just shoot me and put me out of my misery. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but I don’t think I’ll go again for various reasons. Sam was good as were his roommates, and he promised me it wasn’t just because I was there. I would say that the majority of the kids on the trip were well behaved, though not always completely interested in the things we were seeing. However, it only takes a handful of misbehaved kids to wear you down. Here are some of the things that happened involving teenagers on the trip to Barcelona.
There were always the typical “too much energy” scenarios. Pushing and shoving while walking down the street, nearly falling into vendors’ product stands. But I must say, it amazes me that there are children who think that rules are simply recommendations for other people!
The teacher had decided that each night we would have a 10 pm curfew for the kids. That meant they’d be in their own rooms with the door closed. The added part that surprised some of them was the use of tape on their doors. This is an old trick that is used a lot on school trips. If the kids come out of their rooms, the adults will know about it because we can hear the duct tape’s ripping noise as the door is opening and we can see the duct tape out of place. This came to a shock to some of the students, but was truly the only way that the adults could get any kind of rest during the night.
One of the first things that I wanted to make sure that the kids understood was that there were to be no girls in boys rooms and vice versa. I had expressed that to Senor Lopez and he told the group just that. However, there was a particular girl who didn’t think the rule applied to her. On several occasions I caught her coming out of a dark boy’s room. It’s not that I thought anything bad was going to happen, but on the school trips they have had in the past, this has been a rule, and it certainly would be one on a trip I was involved with. Each time, she would say “Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot!” Yeah, right, and I was born yesterday. This was a young girl as it would turn out, who truly thinks that rules are simply suggestions for other people, and apparently because her father paid for the auditorium that was built for the school, she generally doesn’t get into trouble. But this would not be the only altercation I would have with her.
Initially this trip was going to be for only 9th and 10th graders, but when there weren’t enough of them to get us to our number of 20, the Principal decided to open it up to 8th graders. Two of the 8th graders who signed on for the trip were simply there to give their parents a break, and torture us! They never wanted to follow directions, never wanted to learn during the trip, and they were always trying to get away with something. One evening after returning from a day of touring, the kids had a little bit of free time before dinner. I was in my room and heard a lot of noise coming from my window. As it turned out, outside my window was a bit of an alcoved area with 2 large boxes covered in cheap outdoor carpeting. Some of the boys had gone to the 8th grades boys’ room and climbed out the window into this area. It didn’t look safe, and they were certainly being very loud, so I told them to leave the unsafe area and get back in the room. Now, although it wasn’t the 8th grade boys at the time, it was their room and they heard my instructions. Later that night, after everyone had been room checked and taped it, and I was trying to sleep, I could hear noise coming from outside my window, and a woman saying “Hola, hola!”. Wondering what the heck was going on, I got up and peaked out my curtain to see one of the 8th grade boys dancing with his shirt off, swinging his shirt in the air and a Spanish woman watching him as well as a couple of the 9th grade girls. I called Senor Lopez and then we both went to the boys’ rooms, where they tried to pretend they were sleeping and it couldn’t possibly have been anyone in their room. Realizing they were caught in their lies, I demanded apologies and Mr. Lopez and I returned to our rooms.
On the day that we traveled to the champagne cellar in Montserrat, one of the boys decided it would be funny to make a prank phone call. After we finished the tour and were back on the bus, Senor Lopez’s phone rang with someone telling him that we had left one of our students at the champagne cellar. Senor Lopez was frantically counting the students, and told me what he was being told. After counting twice and seeing that we had the correct number, he noticed one of the boys sitting down low in his seat so he couldn’t be seen, and that’s when Senor Lopez figured out it was one of the boys. As it would turn out, this was the first prank phone call by this boy, but the next one would prove to be the one that causes serious damage for him with his parents and the school.
Our last night in Barcelona proved to be the most eventful. The kids had about 2 hours of free time, but we required that they clean up their rooms and pack so that in the morning all they had to do was dress, eat breakfast and head out for our last tour before flying back to Munich. A few minutes before the 10 pm curfew, Senor Lopez and I started room inspections, and taping the doors. Most rooms had been successfully cleaned, but one room of boys had failed to do anything and their room was a mess, not to mention some of the food they had thrown down the hall. As we moved to a room of girls past 10 pm, they decided they should be able to leave to get bottled water and when I said no, it didn’t go over well, however, I was determined to win that battle, and I did – although one of the girls started throwing things and having a fit in her room once we shut her door.
I had just a sense that something was going to happen that night, so I left my robe on over my pajamas and could not sleep. Around midnight my telephone started ringing. “Just great,” I thought. They are prank calling me. I was so tired, and I just couldn’t stand the idea of dealing with this. I struggled to figure out how to unplug the phone but when I couldn’t figure it out, I answered the phone, “Yes?!”
“Mrs. Haines, Mrs. Haines, this is Eduardo.”
I could hear another student in the background saying “Tell her it’s not a joke!”
Eduardo proceeded to tell me that because it was hot in their room, he had tried to turn the heater off, and when he turned the knob, it broke off in his hand and then he heard a loud hissing noise and thought he smelled gas. They were all scared. So I told them, ok, and I called Senor Lopez who was half asleep as it turned out. He came to the room, tried to inspect the problem in his state of being only half awake, and ran downstairs to talk to the hotel people. Neither of us smelled natural gas though. He soon returned back to the room telling the boys “You might smell gas, but it’s not coming from the heater because the heater runs with water!” In Europe, that is how homes and buildings are heated with water radiators, not gas. And the smell they smelled was one of the girls who had been lighting incense. So that ended up being really kind of funny, especially since all the boys in that room are European and they also know the heat comes from heated water. As a matter of fact, Eduardo is Spanish! He’ll never live this story down!
Senor Lopez and I returned to our respective rooms, but I still had a sense that the night’s events weren’t over. At around 1 am in the morning, my sense was confirmed. . .I heard a pounding on a door of three of our boys and a man speaking English with a Scottish accent screaming, “Open the door, open the door!”
Good grief, was all I could think. What is happening now. I opened my door and stuck my head out in the hallway. The man saw me and shouted “Are you responsible for this boys?” (The boys had not opened their doors – I believe they were cowering in fear in their rooms). I replied to the man that I was with the group, but no, I was not responsible for them, but I would call their teacher.
Poor Senor Lopez. Again, half asleep he stumbled to the boys room where the man continued to stand and bellow. The boys finally opened the door when Senor Lopez arrived and then they were yelled at by two men! Apparently, two of the boys had gotten into a pillow fight that involved yelling and screaming, and this poor man was in the room next door, unable to sleep. Needless to say, we didn’t hear anything out of this room of boys the rest of the night, and actually they were all quite good the next day.
But the stupidest thing that happened occurred at the Palma Mallorca airport where we were waiting for about an hour to catch our connecting flight to Munich. Apparently, the same boy who had made the prank phone about us leaving a student in the champagne cellar, decided it would be funny to call the PE teacher of the school and pretend to be the head master of the school. He proceeded with the phone call and told the PE teacher that he was fired! I don’t know at what point the PE teacher discovered something wasn’t right, but he did, and the student had to give his phone to Senor Lopez so he could be informed of what was going on by the PE teacher. It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this is. I know for sure that this student’s parents would be mortified at this conduct – and I can assure you, the ones described here are only the worst incidents. I didn’t even get into the disrespectfulness he displayed and how he threw food across the table at various restaurants.
I did enjoy some of the other kids. I met a young Italian boy named Leo who was very kind and quite funny. I think he spent more time talking to me than Sam did during the trip. If you ask Sam, I just used him to carry my backpack – but I could tell him, “I have all the money!!!” The other group of girls (we had only 5 on the trip were nice and they were thrilled when I found the Sephora for them).
I look forward to returning to Barcelona, maybe sometime in May, but without all these teenagers.

posted by stuckinthemiddle @ 3:17 PM