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Madrid was good. With some limitations -very bad sleep and a rather bad back, a back pain that suddnely attacked me a couple of days before travelling over; on the day it happened I could hardly walk. Went to a doctor (and a doctor came to me, as one of my guitar pupils is a doctor and something big at UCLH). Was prescribed a few alarming painkillers and given some exercises to do.
Once there, tramping around the city with my sister and her troops was fun -up to a point when my back would say no and I had to cut the walking short. Walking a little bit seemed to make it better but walking for long periods of time made it quite painful again. So, I didn't do much in the way of long outings -one day we went to Alcalá de Henares and paid respects to Miguel de Cervantes who was born there and took the inevitable picture at the bench with Quijote and Sancho Panza.
One evening my sister took me to see Cirque Du Soleil. Enjoyed that enormously. Every aspect of it was interesting so that it wasn't just an acrobatic exhibition.
The journey back reminded me of my routine bus trip to school on the 393; children screaming, too little space.
Arrival was a disaster. As I was so tired and with a sore back.. that's how it happened. Pick up the suitcases at Baggage Claim and walk out to catch the bus to the train station... and realise I've left my rucksack (with macbook with my whole working life in it, ipad, a lot of other stuff) somewhere inside the airport or the plane. There ensued two frantic, stressful hours trying to find whether it'd been found -airline said no, lost property said no. Finally I spoke to this young guy (amazing hairstyle) at Customer Services who, instead of phoning people in there, went himself to check out and ... found it. A cleaner had picked it up. Phew.
Arrived home a few hours later than I anticipated, past 11 pm. Slept fitfully and stressed, woke up at 4: something when I had to get up at 6. Today, my first teaching day back at the more stressful of my two schools, was a long, long day.
Once there, tramping around the city with my sister and her troops was fun -up to a point when my back would say no and I had to cut the walking short. Walking a little bit seemed to make it better but walking for long periods of time made it quite painful again. So, I didn't do much in the way of long outings -one day we went to Alcalá de Henares and paid respects to Miguel de Cervantes who was born there and took the inevitable picture at the bench with Quijote and Sancho Panza.
One evening my sister took me to see Cirque Du Soleil. Enjoyed that enormously. Every aspect of it was interesting so that it wasn't just an acrobatic exhibition.
The journey back reminded me of my routine bus trip to school on the 393; children screaming, too little space.
Arrival was a disaster. As I was so tired and with a sore back.. that's how it happened. Pick up the suitcases at Baggage Claim and walk out to catch the bus to the train station... and realise I've left my rucksack (with macbook with my whole working life in it, ipad, a lot of other stuff) somewhere inside the airport or the plane. There ensued two frantic, stressful hours trying to find whether it'd been found -airline said no, lost property said no. Finally I spoke to this young guy (amazing hairstyle) at Customer Services who, instead of phoning people in there, went himself to check out and ... found it. A cleaner had picked it up. Phew.
Arrived home a few hours later than I anticipated, past 11 pm. Slept fitfully and stressed, woke up at 4: something when I had to get up at 6. Today, my first teaching day back at the more stressful of my two schools, was a long, long day.
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