CENTER TWP — Tim Denny of Center Township recently returned from his fourth trip to Spain. And while he’s enjoyed himself on each of his sojourns, he’s traveled more for work and education than pleasure.

Denny graduated from Butler High School in 1988 and from the University of Minnesota in 1994 with a degree in Spanish. He returned to Butler County June 26 after living and being an educator for a year in Cádiz, Spain, his fourth stint of living and teaching in Spain.

“The Spanish Ministry of Education every year selects 700 to 1,000 college graduates from North America to teach English in the public schools,” said Denny.

In his most recent position, he spent October through May teaching English in a grade school and a high school in Cádiz, a port city in the southwestern province of Andalusia.

“It’s actually the oldest city in Europe,” said Denny. “It’s over 3,000 years old. The Phoenicians founded it. It was a big trade center. The people pride themselves on that. It’s on a peninsula. It’s a walled city. It feels like a small town.”

He added Cádiz, has been a principal port through which cargo from the New World arrived in Spain.

“There are towers or torres in Cádiz on top of many buildings. People would climb them to see what color flags the returning ships were flying. Different flags meant different cargo,” he said.

“It’s right on the ocean. Some of the best beaches in Europe are there,” he said. Denny said La Playa de la Caleta beach and the boulevard greatly resemble parts of Havana, the capital city of Cuba.

So much so, that Cádiz served as the stand-in for several of the Cuban scenes in the beginning of the James Bond movie “Die Another Day.”

Cádiz has also been a principal home port of the Spanish Navy since the accession of the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century.

Denny said the local cuisine featured a lot of fish and seafood — tuna, prawns, calamari and dog fish — as well as tapas, serrano ham and gazpacho.

Denny said his stay in Spain was not a study abroad program.

“You are teaching English and culture. You are representing where you come from. The students want to know about American food, traditions, holidays. They love Americans and anything that represents the United States. They want to learn English,” he said.

“You are in a classroom as a language assistant,” he said.

“The kids at the schools really respected me and they wanted to get to know me,” he said. “They were excited about learning American English.”

“The schools I were at were multicultural had students from France, Morocco, China, all immigrants,” he added.

Because Cádiz is home to the University of Cádiz and a tourist destination, finding lodging to rent was fairly easy. Although, he said, in Spain, apartments are rented almost completely furnished down to the silverware. Usually the renter only has to bring personal items and bed linen.

Denny rented a room in a house from a Spanish couple within walking distance of the two schools where he was teaching English. He alternated: one week at a high school, one week at an elementary school.

“I walked a lot. It was a 20-minute walk to my schools. They were 10 minutes apart from one another,” he said. “It’s not like here where you need a car.”

“And in Cádiz there’s no place to park,” he said. Being a walled city on a peninsula means it’s a city with a small-town feel, he added.

The school year ran from October to May. “I created a number of lesson plans. I taught English, math, social science. The classes are structured to be bilingual. A third of the class instruction has to be in English,” he said.

Denny said living in Cádiz highlighted some differences. For instance, the Spanish don’t mark Thanksgiving and on Christmas, “it’s the three wise men who bring the gifts, not Santa.”

“Halloween is becoming more and more popular, but they dress up in costume for Carnival. They have musical groups that go out in the streets and sing all day and night and people dress in costume and drink and eat until the next day,” said Denny.

Carnival is the period before the beginning of Lent and is celebrated in Cadiz with music, costumes, choirs and satire.

“I’ve been there so many times, the biggest difference for me is the dialect and accent,” said Denny.

“They don’t speak the same in every part of Spain and they use different words. It’s like the difference between English in upper New England and English in the deep South.”

Denny said Spanish students need to learn English for their careers and adult schools of language “are very affordable. Classes meet twice a week.”

“It is important to have that English diploma. If you can speak another language, particularly English at a high level, that has more weight,” when it comes to landing a job, Denny said.

He’ll be back next year for another English teaching stint but to a different section of the country, Badajoze in Extremadura which is near the border with Portugal. He also plans to complete his master’s degree in Spanish at the University of Salamanca.

“It’s cheaper to study in Spain,” he said, “but by doing my master’s in Spain, I will be able to do it for about $10,000.”

Denny said he was a AFS international exchange student to Paraguay in South America during his junior year at Butler High.

That led him on many journeys abroad.

“I have really enjoyed some amazing experiences. I encourage anyone to go abroad,” he said.