Goodbyes

The year is really over....wow. 

I didn't expect my last day at the school to be so hard. After having spent the last 9 months complaining about the program, the teachers and the complete lack of discipline in the classrooms, I more or less expected to say adiós and leave feeling pretty happy.
Instead, I walked into the 2nd years classroom Thursday morning and my lip immediately started quivering. They had all signed the whiteboard and written 'Emma we will miss you!' and gave me a poster board that they had all signed with little messages. They also turned off the lights and had me sit through a 5 minute long youtube video of 'Graduation' by Vitamin C, while they sniffled and sang through the choruses. That part was slightly awkward.

This hour was in comparison to the day before, when I had stomped out of the room at the end of class, after having gone hoarse from yelling at them to be quiet all hour. Aaaa the highs and lows of teaching.
We spent the hour taking pictures and watching more youtube videos and I signed about a bazillion 'yearbooks'. (In English of course.) Bless their little hearts that they are still at the age where its okay for the girls to cry about me leaving, and for the boys to look decently sad. I'll miss that class.

Even saying bye to some of the teachers was hard, especially the secretary, who had been giving me rides home for the last couple of months. Even though, after 9 months, I still don't know her name.
As I said thanks for everything and goodbye to the bilingual coordinator, I was really glad I hadn't printed off and handed in the angry evaluation letter I had written on Monday. Looking back on the year, I survived, and had a great experience. I don't want to leave a bad taste behind.

Then when I went for a café at my usual place, I gave the waitress 2 besos goodbye and she said my toast and coffee was on the house. Awwww, Spain! You're finally pulling through a little with all the hospitality I'd been missing all year!

Even my 3rd year class was decently sad to see me leave, although even just being 1 year old than the 2nd years meant that they were far too mature to shed any tears.

I walked out of the school feeling vaguely unsettled, and not sure what to do next. Saying goodbye is hard. But as they like to say in Spain, it's only see you later, not goodbye!
(But to be perfectly honest, I will hopefully probably never be back to this city again. So it really is goodbye.)