June 30 - USA

Thursday was a hard day.  Lots of cleaning and final packing in the morning and then class in the afternoon.  The teachers gave me a framed photo of me and all of the teachers (two had not been there when the original photo was taken, but thanks to some fancy cut and paste - they are in my copy of the photo :) and a mug and sweatshirt.  I was alone in class and we did a few exercises, but mostly we just did one last day of conversation practice.  I left with lots of "see you soon"s, but I know that for many of these people I will likely never see them again - and it was a sad set of goodbyes.

After class, I headed home and finished up packing.  Mario stopped by to say a last goodbye.  And Albert and I went out for gelato and a last visit to our bridge.

Friday morning, we caught an 8:30 am Uber to the airport - no airport bus with our years worth of luggage.  It was hard to believe we were really leaving. 

We made a stop in Lisbon, Portugal.... famous for their sardines.  I like this sardine tin chair.

Next stop Newark.  The plane ride was long but uneventful - the lines in immigration and customs in Newark were AWFUL.  Then another line to get our car and finally only 16 hours after leaving our apartment in Sevilla, we were on the road to our hotel.  An hour and a half later we were checked in and heading out for a quick dinner.  Then glorious sleep.  While we were travelling, my teacher sent this photo of my seat in the classroom.  After near perfect attendance for a year, it was weird not to be in class.

Saturday morning, we made our way up to Betty's house in the mountains where we will be until Wednesday morning.  A very peaceful transition back in to US life.  Saturday night we hit the sack early and today we did lots of walking and animal watching and probably too much eating and even a little Spanish practice and tried to check off some small jobs on Betty's list.  Tomorrow and Tuesday, hopefully more of the same.