The heavy basket made the walk a little more of a workout than usual.
Class was good, I have some great classmates and I am really enjoying my teacher.
After class, the teachers set up for the 2pm food fair. Most of my class was staying, so we just spent the half hour between class and the "lunch" chatting in our classroom. Around 2 o'clock, Albert showed up and we made our way over to the classroom to sample everyone's dishes. I was happy that the mac and cheese was still warm. YAY insulation!
For the first hour, folks mostly ate and talked. There were long tables of foods from all over - Crepes from France, Bulgogi from Korea, Pickles from Poland, Cookies from the Czech Republic, Samorejo from Spain, Red Bean Paste Cookies from China, Sushi from Japan, Spicy rice from Algeria and on and on. I didn't come close to trying everything, but I did enjoy the things I tried.
The second hour we listened to music both from the internet and from a student who is here studying Flamenco guitar - and did some dancing. A good chance to work off some of the food, listen to some Spanish music, and enjoy each others company.
When it was all over - we needed to clean up so that the afternoon classes could start at 4. I brought some pretty large containers since I wasn't sure how many leftovers I would have. Turns out, I could have brought much smaller containers - there was one small piece of pie and about one serving of macaroni and cheese - and lots of kind words.
After class, we carried everything home - much lighter now and with Albert's help it was an easy walk home.
Last week, I found an announcement for a free Data Science talk near our house. I couldn't figure out exactly why it was happening (was it a sales pitch for Data Science services for businesses, an academic lecture, something else?) - but I showed it to Albert and he was interested enough to sign up. The talk was this evening and we walked over together. I left him there and went to the store before heading home to do some Spanish.
A couple of hours later, he came home. It seems that there is a private "school" that is training students in data science techniques, and there are already branches in Barcelona and Madrid (and maybe somewhere else?) - they have just opened a new branch in Sevilla and this was an introductory talk - basically, what is data science and what can you do with it - a way to explain to potential students about their program. Since Albert is not interested in paying to take classes in Spanish about data science, it turned out to be just a chance to practice some Spanish listening where he was already familiar with the content and vocabulary, to talk to a person who sat next to him (who spoke some English) who is looking at retraining after losing a job, and to get a free notebook.
