Adios.... Better Yet: HASTA LUEGO Madrid!

I'm sitting here on my sofa at 'home' in the southern suburbs of Chicago.  I've been contemplating daily to start this blog because I knew it would truly mean that my time in Spain has come to an end.  I guess Ive been on vacation mode for the past month... God, I cant believe I left Madrid over a month ago. 

Well this blog will be about my last few weeks in Spain.  I dont have it in me quite yet to talk about how I currently feel about leaving.  Yep, I'm definitely in DENIAL!

I was even in denial before I left.  So as the weeks and the days were winding down, I decided not to say any goodbyes.  I told everyone we would simply say the overly used phrase 'See ya later!' I finished out the month of June at American Language Academy.  I had a falling out with my boss a few weeks before so I decided to finish my contract and take private classes for my last few weeks.  It worked out well.  Some classes I've had all year long and I picked up a few more little by little over the last few months. 

By the end of June, I was teaching my 25 hours a week with ALA and another 15-20 hours a week in privates.  Needless to say, I was able to put away a nice little nest egg for myself after I'd gotten home to Chicago.  For the past year I've been almost solely working for Tecnicas Reunidas, a prominent engineering company, through ALA.  I started at 8 or 9 am and working straight until 3 or 4.  After that, I was free to do what I wanted which was usually private classes. 

As for my privates, I continued some of the usual like Patri and MaAngeles.  I also started a pharmaceutical company called Incimed which was one of my favorite classes.  The my friend and colleague, Michelle started her own company called Talkbox English.  So I got a few more privates from her.  One of my favorites was a 2 year named Alicia.  I decided I wanted to take on a class with a younger child.  It was quite a struggle at first but after about 6 weeks, Ali and I became attached at the hip. I got along fantastically with her young family and her baby sister Alba.  Leaving her that last day was probably one of the hardest parts of leaving Spain.  Then I took on an entire group of friends, not at the same time.  I started with one young professional, Ana who gave my number to her other friends: Lourdes, Jaime, Maria and Fernando (who worked for Tecnicas)  So we became this giant circle of of English- learning friends.  Actually, Jaime hired me to help him pass the TOEFL and GRE exams so he could begin his Masters at Illinois Insititute of Technology.  He passed all his exams and I recently helped him move to Chicago! Its like having a piece of Madrid here in Chicago with me.

I spent my last weekends trying to stay as normal as possible.  A lot of my best friends left Madrid the end of June to take thier vacations.  That was rough, not getting more time to say goodbye.  But I did well of keeping it together.  I just wanted things to be normal. So we went to our favorite resturants and drank and partied at our typical bars. 

I knew however that I wanted a fun Farewell Party.  Thinking about sites, I decided that I wanted to rent out the basement of a bar so I could bring snacks and we could play drinking games.  The previous St. Pattys we went to this Irish pub in the center.  I realized it'd be the perfect place to have my 'DESPIDIDA'.  So I contacted the owner and reserved the night for my party. The day of the party, my roommate Nikki, friend Tisha and I got to the bar early to decorate it in 'El Estilo Americano'.  I spent the rest of the day getting snacks together then headed out.  It was a fantastic turnout of old friends, new friends, colleagues and students.  We drank and danced and even played Flip Cup which is a new favorite to a lot of my Spanish students. After the bar closed some of us headed out to a club to finish out the night.  Overall, I couldnt have asked for a better Goodbye Party!

Last few days in Madrid were spent finishing classes, packing and spending time with friends and favorite places. I made sure to go to Toledo one last time just to reminisce about everything that I had discovered and experienced over the last 2 1/2 years.