everybody wants a piece of me

Had a really fun day today.

After sleeping in and a slow wake-up, I headed off to TtMadrid around noon to print some stuff and say goodbye to the teachers there. Had a nice chat with Tem, gifted her some peanut butter and was on my way.

Next I met some of my students and their co-workers downtown for lunch, which turned out to be a bunch of tapas at an Asturian bar, then some coffee (for me) and cocktails (for them) at another bar, then more tapas and beer and sangria at a bar in Huertas (I finally learned how to peel shrimp!), then another beer in an Irish pub in Sol. Whew! Six and a half hours of eating and drinking. My kind of vacation! I will def miss those guys.

From the Irish pub went directly to meet up with a Spanish friend (Carlos of the hiking trip whom I briefly dated) at Tribunal for Mexican food. Closed that place down, wandered around for a while looking for his car, got a little lost on the way home, and finally arrived, safe and sound, a little before 3am.

Tomorrow am going to the amusement park with my former private student, Alba, and perhaps her sister. They have water rides, which I am very much looking forward to since it has been hot here these past few days. (Though not as hot as it will be when my mom and I travel to Sevilla!!)

Sunday I have a lot of administrative wrapping up to do on my classes, not to mention hanging out for a bit with Leslie of Philadelphia and for another bit with Craig of New Zealand.

Busy, busy! But I'm happy to be able to say proper goodbyes to the people I've come to know here in Madrid.

And what's even nicer for me is finding out that I've had a positive effect on people's lives. One of my classes bought an enormous (Texas-sized) greeting card for me and they all signed it AND they gave me some cute gifts. How thoughtful! And tonight Carlos confessed that our brief acquaintance has had an effect on how he thinks about life and the direction he wants to take his career. Major! And here all this time I thought my presence here wasn't making a damn bit of difference to anyone. It's so flattering and gratifying to know that I matter to people and that they consider their lives richer for having met me. Too cool!