With our long weekend last weekend, this past week has flown by at school. I spent much of the week getting through grading and preparing for this week. We have our first trimester midterm soon, which means I am writing comments for my advisees, finalizing grades, and figuring out what all that means. I had a really good class with my seventh and eighth graders last week, a big lightbulb moment for maybe 60% of them, which felt like a major win. Also, my Yale friend Hannah treated me to a very sweet birthday dinner and dessert on Thursday. We had a lovely walk around my neighborhood and are hoping to make it a weekly tradition.
This weekend, my cousin Micah visited from Boston/London at the end of his major euro travel. We met up on Friday after I finished at school and began a whirlwind 36-hour tour of Madrid. We walked through El Retiro park, up into the Salamanca neighborhood, then across through Chueca, and stopped for some burritos. On Saturday, we got an early start at the Reina Sofia museum and saw Guernica without much of a crowd. We met up for a minute with Hannah, who was also there that morning with some friends from her program. After that, we had a nice walk across Lavapiés to the Royal Palace, the main cathedral, Plaza de España, and Templo de Debod. A highlight was the Sabatini Gardens alongside the Palace, which have just reopened after renovations and were beautiful (and still a bit under construction – reminded me of my school).
We headed back to my apartment for some rest before meeting up with some colleagues for the wildest games of Bingo I’ve ever played at a club – needless to say, there were balloons, confetti, major sparklers, and so much more. My ears are still ringing, but it was a lot of fun.
Sunday morning, Micah and I met for a quick breakfast before he headed off for the airport. See a very sleepy-looking me in the photo below. I went home for some more rest before meeting Paula and her roommate, Feline, who just arrived from Germany, at the Perrotón (dog marathon). It was a 5k with dogs and their owners running and walking up the main Paseo del Prado. I caught the tail end (no pun intended), and then the three of us walked to our next animal viewing point for the Fiesta de Transhumancia (best translation: Transhumance Festival??). See a few photos below, but it is a festival emphasizing the role of certain kinds of farming for biodiversity in the fight against climate change. It’s a big procession through the center of the city, including farmers and hundreds (thousands?) of goats and sheep. It was awesome! My favorite part was that immediately after the procession of goats, the city came through with a parade of cleaning machines to erase all traces of the smell 🙂
After that, we met up at Tapapies, a tapas festival in the Lavapiés neighborhood, with a group of Brewster teachers and associated friends! It was a really random collection of people, but quite fun to bring everyone together. And the tapas were awesome! After that, Paula and I met up with another colleague Claire at a coffee shop for some debriefing and catching up.
This week promises to be another busy one! In addition to school, I’m looking forward to booking my November and December travel! Hoping to get out of Friday afternoon PE once or twice 🙂 Shhh don’t tell. I hope you enjoy the photos below, and I’ll send another batch soon! Oh, and I found gelt at the grocery store!
Abe Tolkoff 