AULA Day Five: El Final

I woke up early enough to take my dirty clothes by a lavateria I spied yesterday near La Gran Via. However, I was foiled by the fact that it is Sunday, and the establishment is closed. So now I have my dirty clothes with me at the fair. Luckily, there is a closet I can hide them in. Just to fill you in, reimbursements for laundry is one of my running battles with my office. They seem to think that $15 a week (which is what domestic reps get) will cut it all over the world. Not so. Very much not so. Refusing to pay this cost out of pocket, on principle, I have gone to great lengths to stay in this range (remember, Nasser’s apartment) until I can perhaps win my argument to get reimbursed for whatever it may cost, within reason. I am bringing back a laundry list from my current hotel. It is ludicrous.

So far, the day is slow. My objective is to press all my remaining material on students, whether they want it or not. I hate trashing it. Actually, I judged this one quite well. There should not be that much left, and what is can be given out at school visits over the next couple of days or saved for the Paris fair.

So it’s all done. I pack up my stuff and go to catch a cab. I have my laundry, my box of spare materials, my backpack, and a banner rolled up in a tube. I tell the driver “Auditorio,” as I’ve heard drivers repeat back to me every time I say “Hotel Auditorium.” He nods, and away we go. I soon suspect he is heading into town, and inquire as to what route we are taking to the hotel. “Oh”, he says in Spanish, “you should have been more specific. I thought you meant the music theatre downtown.” Yeah, the American leaving the convention center, with so much crap in his arms he can barely walk, wants to take this stuff to a concert, rather than go to the nearby hotel where foreign convention-goers usually stay. What a moron.

While we are speaking of my hotel, let me say that it is the most soulless place I’ve ever spent a week. It is the largest urban hotel in Europe, so they say. It feels as if it was converted from a mall. It is in the middle of nowhere, out by the airport, making it difficult to get into Madrid. This is a blessing in disguise, as the event this week required so much time, that if I were tempted to go enjoy the city every night, I would have been in bad shape indeed. After Seville, I needed to take a break.

However, these sentiments did not prevent me from getting off at the Sevilla Metro stop (good omen) downtown to meet Rachel (the English bird) and her booth-mate Caroline at a bar called Magister for drinks and tapas. Caroline is French, so of course we wandered into the minefield of trans-Atlantic relations. You gotta love the French. They will give you a good argument, even after they’ve admitted they are prejudiced (anti-American) hypocrites (pacifist arms dealers). We move off of politics (Rachel was looking worried when I started arguing France should be thrown off the UN Security Council in favor of India) and on to another bar, along the way touring most of the architectural sites downtown. So, at least I was able to see old Madrid, if briefly.