It’s the end of another week in Murcia and things are slowly drawing to a close. Annalisa flew back to England on Saturday, leaving just the four of us for the last two weeks.
The rest of last weekend passed without event. On Sunday morning I met Alicia at the antiques market to look for second-hand books and vintage post-cards, and spent the afternoon on my Year Abroad Project. In the evening I met up with José before we both joined my friends for Smöoy.
On Monday I had my last teaching session with Mariluz’s children, Guillermo, Sergio and Roberto. It was really strange to think I’d never see any of them again and that they’d carry on with their education without my help - maybe one day, they’d even use the English I’d taught them in their careers. Mariluz seemed the most upset of everyone to let me go, and had bought me a card for all the boys to sign.
Tuesday was spent doing more work on my Year Abroad Project, and my day was broken up only in the evening when I went to teach Carmen and Gregorio for an hour and met the girls for drinks afterwards. There was more tying up of loose ends on Wednesday, getting forms signed and stamped by the university and scanning over my work contracts to Madrid. In the evening we decided to have our last big night out with Annalisa, so everyone came over to my flat for pre-drinks before heading to Badulake. We stayed for a couple of hours (in which time I met someone genuinely called Javier) before going on to Boutique. Javier and co. decided to follow us there but unfortunately his name was so similar to Javer that I could only restrain myself from breaking into Les Miserables songs for long enough to speak to him for a few minutes at a time.
My very last English class took place on Thursday afternoon with Carmen and Gregorio, and we ended on a positive note playing games and having fun. At the end they insisted on having a photo with me before we said our goodbyes and parted ways. I wonder what my little pupils will turn out like.
That evening, Annalisa, Alicia and I went to the end of year meal with our Methodology class. The arrangements were all very Spanish - meeting at 9.30 (everyone turned up at 10) and going for a meal and drinks at a local tapas bar. It was great for me as nearly all my little group was able to come to the meal, so I could have photos with them and say goodbye to them properly. Vicen, who had organised it all, had booked out the entire top floor of one of the local tapas bars, and it was a really lovely evening. I sat with my group and it wasn’t until then that I realised how well we got on and how much I had in common with them, especially with Belén, who plays the violin and piano and sings like I do. The meal was amazing, too; the girl who had helped organise it, as well as the staff, were really understanding about my vegetarianism and arranged for me to have separate dishes when the others were having meat. We had over six courses and endless supplies of alcohol and didn’t end up leaving until gone 12.30.
From the tapas bar, we went on to a couple of other small bars in the area before ending up, inevitably, at the bar on the corner (La colmena) where Ali was having drinks with her two brothers and her friend Helen, who were over for the week along with her parents. Despite the fact that, after feeling so horrendous that day, we’d all sworn we wouldn’t go out that night, we somehow ended up at the shots bar and clubs yet again.
Friday was Annalisa’s last day so we had to make the most out of it. Lina had an exam until 1 so we got the first bus out of Murcia after that and spent the rest of the day at the beach with Ali and her family. It was a great day; Annalisa and I had even, to Lina’s horror, started a singalong in the bus with the guy behind when he started playing Aerosmith’s Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing on his phone.
When we got back at around 7 we just had time to grab a bite to eat before meeting again. First we went for some really cool cocktails in a chic bar down one of the side streets, which were served inside a fresh pineapple. Whilst at the cocktail bar, we gave Alicia her birthday card and an early birthday present, a scrap book of the Year Abroad we’d been making in secret during the previous few weeks, complete with photos, quotations and little pictures. It had involved an incredible amount of sneaking around without Alicia’s knowledge (Lina had felt like she was cheating on her) but it was all worth it for Alicia’s reaction. After that we moved on to a shisha bar, where we stayed until the early hours.
The next morning, the five of us met at Annalisa’s flat to help her with her things and accompany her to the bus station. We had to get two taxis, and the ride over with just Annalisa, Ali and me must have been the quietest time I’ve ever spent with them. I don’t think any of us had ever been so subdued; we just couldn’t believe that it was all over, and we didn’t want it to end.
Ali had to go and teach at 11, leaving just Alicia, Lina and me to wave Annalisa off. As she was getting on the bus, in true, ditsy Annalisa style, she dropped her ticket without realising. Of course we saw it and picked it up for her, and it seemed a perfect way to say goodbye to her, leaving us with yet another one of her ditsy moments as a little memento. She’s the most cheerfully unaware, happy-go-lucky person I think I’ve ever met and it will be strange without her. This is the girl who has managed to lose her phone, keys, iPod, camera and even the odd reading book in the space of five months; the girl who has swapped numbers with the pizza man, a bouncer and countless creepy Italians; the girl who has never done running in her life, signed up for a marathon and asked if she would be ok to run it in five-euro daps. When she got onto that bus, we were saying goodbye to a member of our perfectly-balanced little group, and as the bus rounded the corner, we stood there sobbing hopelessly until it was out of sight.
When it was just the three of us we left the station together, feeling lost and unsure of what on earth to do next. We whiled away the rest of the morning in a cafe on the university square, before going our separate ways to get some jobs done for a couple of hours. In the afternoon, Lina and I met up again (as Alicia was at teaching and Ali was still entertaining her family). We chatted all afternoon in the warm shade of the tree-lined park, until it felt like we knew each other inside-out.
That evening, we met Ali and her family for shisha (which seems to be our new unhealthy habit), until splitting off from her parents so it was just the four of us and Ali’s older brother, Dan. We ended up doing a bar crawl of all the places we’d wanted to go to in Murcia but hadn’t yet got round to trying. There were a lot of bars, a lot of sangria, calimocho and shots and, in the end, a lot of drama.
The next day, I met Alicia and Lina at the bus station in the morning to make the most of the weather by spending the day at Alicante beach. The temperature was absolutely blistering, so we couldn’t sit for long before having to cool off in the sea. We got back in the evening, which I spent sobbing to my parents on Skype about the previous night, organising my flat for Madrid and packing for the following week, since we were leaving for the North the following morning.
After a restless night, I made my way to the station in the morning. On the way, I finally had a chance to make amends for what had happened on Friday night, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt such relief as right then, when I realised that things were going to be ok after all, and I wasn’t going to lose some of the best friends I’ve ever had.
Before we knew it, we were on our way to Madrid: the beginning of yet another new chapter.
No comments:
Post a Comment