Jazz club

With Thanksgiving behind me, I have only a week left. I had been gripping about Thanksgiving a little bit because of my ambition to get an actual pie for the party at school, but when it all worked out well for me to bring merely some apple pastry (which was extremely good) from a bakery.

I also arranged with AirBnb to leave the apartment early, so on Thursday I'll move to a hotel and on Friday hand the key back to the "host."

So I really have no remaining obligations besides the last week (for me) of classes except to pack.

Yesterday I went on a lovely walk through the neighborhood bwteeen Plaza de Santa Ana and Plaza Major. It's filled with touristy/authentic bars and is also the location where the singing men held forth. (Curiously, when the World Cup began they stopped completely, I suppose because their English/Scottish leagues had paused or ended.) I found my way to Plaza de Santa Cruz, which in Christmas season has a big beutiful carousel.

It's the plaza where Anna and I hung out a lot on our trip for New Year's 2019. So I sat down at the same cafe we used to go to and ordered albondigas -- meatballs -- and a little red wine. The sun set. I was so happy.

That evening there was supposed to be a class sponsored trip to a jazz club (pictured at top; picture is from their website), but not enough people signed up and it was cancelled. But I went anyway. To get there I wanted to take the Metro from Gran Vía to the Antón Martín station. The crowds around the plaza were such that the street was shut down and they were doing traffic control at station entrances. But I was way early anyway, and got to Cafe El Despartar so early that I went across the street into a bar and watched part of the US-England World Cup match. The music in the cafe didn't start til 9:45 or so.

After the first set I was joined by Reme, one of the teachers at the school who lives in the neighborhood anyway, and her boyfriend. This was the first chance I've had -- after being here almost three months -- to do what everyone else does in the evening, which is to hang out in a restaurant or bar with friends. We were there until after midnight, and then they walked me back to the metro station.