TEFL Class Dinner

Drinks after Ganesh

 I fully believe last night was the beginning of the end. The night that everyone died. There are not enough words in the English language (or the Spanish language for that matter) to describe the insanity that was last night. But, here's my feeble attempt...

Manzanilla at the Flamenco Bar

 Prof. Bouse made a reservation for the class at Ganesh, an Indian/Andalusian cuisine restaurant near the Antón Martín metro stop. The dinner itself was EXQUISITE. I love all types of ethnic food: Indian, Thai, Japanese, what have you. They served us family style, where they just brought out platters and bowls of curries and Indian dishes and we served our own helpings.

manzanilla = spanish white sherry. BLEH.

 The night started to get a little out of hand post-dinner. Bouse led us down the street to a bar owned by the same people and they offered us all a shot (of caramel vodka - who even drinks that??) on the house. We were all mingling and drinking cerveza after cerveza when Bouse decided he had one more place to show us.

cutting a rug with Stuart

 It turned out to be a flamenco bar just a few streets away, total local-hangout. They served us all glasses of Manzanilla, which is a Spanish white-sherry type drink, that I have to say is not on my list of go-to drinks. BLEH. So tart and bitter, but half of our group was downing glass after glass.

the boys = FOLDED.

 Stuart tried to give me dance lessons, but I can honestly say I don't thing either of us knew what type of dancing we were trying to do. The place filled up rather quickly and we were all dancing, and drinking, and having a grand ol' time. We finally headed out a little after 4 a.m. (and when I say we, I mean myself, Brittany, Gemma, Bre, and Kasey - the boys and Bouse were still going strong). It was pizza and a cab home for the rest of us.

outdoor book store on the way to churros

 This morning, Brittany, Gemma, and I made plans to visit the Filmoteca and catch an old black and white film; today's was the 1933 version of King Kong. The movie itself was at 5:30, so Brittany and I decided to meet before for a late lunch (I didn't roll out of bed til about 1:30) and then head over to the theater together. We met in Sol, as per usual, and were walking to a well-known churros place, when who do we see???

Boating in Parque Retiro

 Bouse! Slumped in a chair outside of a cafe with Megan and Tall Tom from the TEFL camp program. Turns out they never went to sleep; they stayed at the flamenco bar til it closed down at 6 a.m. and from there they bounced from cafe to cafe drinking beer and taking shots til about 3 p.m. How they were still coherent was beyond me - but the same can't be said for Bouse. Poor thing couldn't even hold his head up! I was honestly worried, since it was sweltering outside and he was still wearing his button up and suit jacket from last night and he couldn't even form clear sentences. We think Megan and Tom finally managed to get his address out of him and get him in a taxi, but I'm still shocked! Seeing Bouse with Megan and Tall Tom (who were supposed to be on a bus to camp this morning) was so hilarious/insane/worrisome/mind-boggling I can't even wrap my head around it.

EL Palacio de Cristal

But Brittany and I managed to meet up with Gemma, catch our movie, and then we wandered around Parque Retiro til about 9:3o p.m. Strangely, it's still light out til about 10:15/10:30ish here in Madrid and time just seems to slip away from us. We sat in the park and grabbed ice creams as we walked around the boating area and the Crystal Palace. It was a pretty chill day after a crazy night. But hey, no complaints here.
UPDATE: Megan and tall Tom managed to squeeze an address out of Prof. Bouse...that ended up being a convenience store. After that, they couldn't get him back in the cab. So...they left him there. Hopefully by that point he was at least standing on his own.