I have the day off today due to students having exams, so I have some time to catch up on here!  It’s been quite awhile, hasn’t it?

 

Spain has lots of these random holidays throughout the year where schools, banks, government things are closed. Usually it’s for religious reasons, and usually, if you ask a student why we have off, they say “no se Profe”.  

 

Works for me.

 

The holiday in December is a good one- 3 days plus the weekend.  In past years, it was a good time to do an extra long trip, Bruge and Ghent, Belgium in 2015 and Krakow and Warsaw, Poland in 2016 (plus visiting Auschwitz).

 

This year, I sort of dragged my feet in making a plan and by the time I got around to it, things were crazy expensive, so I sort of just decided to hang low, get some work in on VIPKID, and hang with Luis.  

 

Despite some major feelings of loneliness (I wrote a whole post about it, but decided to make it private), we still managed to do some fun things like….

 

Lots of cooking! Greek yogurt bread, banana bread, spicy vegetarian chili, potato soup and fall wheat berry salad.

 

On Friday, we went to Avila with Luis’ mom.

 

We left sort of late in the day and while we were driving there, we tried calling every restaurant on Trip Advisor to get a lunch reservation, only to find everything FULL. Luckily, one place had an opening when we arrived and the food was SO GOOD!!!  This butternut squash soup was my favorite thing we had, naturally.

 

We also shared an epic amount of cheese with tomato jam and homemade croquetas.

 

And then after all of that yummy-ness, we still had a T-bone steak.  Luis and I shared because that thing was HUGE, but he ate most of it because it was too rare for my taste.

 

After all that food, we walked around Avila, popped in and out of shops, and went down this awesome slide!  

#kids

 

I found a new hat for this winter…

 

Or this one?

 

Vote in comments.

 

I worked out quite a bit (gotta get those endorphins), including one NTC workout, and two runs. One of those runs ended in a pretty nasty fall, resulting in a lot of tears and a pretty horrible bruise and scratches.  I’m ok though.

 

Saturday luis had some friends over, so it was fun to play hostess and have some commotion in the house. I fell asleep way early, but they finished off a number of bottles and the wreckage was still there the next morning.

 

Sunday night, we did something I’ve been wanting to do for so long!! We went to a cafe and worked on our computers,’planned a couple trips, and sipped a green juice.

 

It’s so simple but something I love doing!! I am always so much more productive in a cafe! Why?

 

I went shopping one day, and for a long walk. 

 

Other than all of that, we had lots of lovely breakfasts on Luis’ incredible terrace!  

 

And here we are- back to the grind.  Despite my low feelings this weekend, I am feeling back to normal after a good Monday.  I had off from work (again), so I did VIPKID, went for a couple walks, did a Body Combat class, and worked on a surprise project 😉

 

Chat soon!

 

p.s. my parents are Vietnam and I am so jealous!