A great party!

After our last day of classes, my advanced English students came over to the apartment in the evening, and had a party for me. While I knew they were going to do this, I didn't know how sneaky they had been, with their "innocent" questions over the last couple of weeks. I remember someone asking me my favorite kind of cake, and the place I got it. Or the day when everyone was in class and someone said "hey, let's take a class picture!" I asked for the picture, but it wasn't emailed to me...because my students had plans.

 Paola and Maryorie:

 Genoveva and Raúl, two of my most serious students:
 Vania, Daniela, Felipe M. and Ignacio:

 Valeria, who took most of the pictures, and Connie, who everyone said was the party master-mind:

 
One of the best things about traveling-well, more than traveling, having the chance to live in different places is the people you meet. The worst thing is leaving them. I tend to get pretty emotional about good-byes, so this last week of classes has been hard for me. I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to work with my two groups of students, and feel very close to them. So the distance that will be between us seems very difficult indeed. But we live in wonderful times: we can Skype, send emails and there is always the chance of meeting again. I fully expect I WILL be lucky enough to see these great people again.
In addition to bringing all the food (and my cake!), the students gave me a framed enlargement of the picture they took. They also gave me a souvenir book with Wulff Castle on the front, and each wrote something to me in it. I had to wait until after everyone left to read it, because I didn't want to embarrass myself. As it was, I was pretty teary-eyed, even behind my smiles.

 
Felipe M., Ignacio and Angie:           Daniela, Felipe M., Ignacio, Angie and Valeria:
(Thanks, Angie, for your personal gift!)

                    
 Vania, Paola, Maryorie and Conne:

 
 Thank you, everyone, for the wonderful party! But mostly, thank you for being such great students, and making my time here as your teacher one of the most memorable times in my teaching career. I'm going to miss all of you very much.

Front row: Connie, Valeria (Ignacio behind her), Angie and Genoveva
Middle: Me, Vania, Maryorie, Paola, Carolina, Daniela
Back: Francisco R., Felipe M. and Raúl
Other folks in the class who couldn't come to the party, but who will be missed very much: Felipe V. Eduardo, Josefa, Francisco V., Javiera and Nicólas.