My Spanish Guardian Angels.

I have been conferencing.

Not a particularly cutting edge scientific program, but the social events make it worthwhile, for networking. A professor of medicine once told me that to get an international profile, one must attend international conferences.

I proudly hung my poster. Like most of the posters, nobody much looked at it. Oh well. It was a big deal for me. I have my name in the abstract book.

At the social events, I met some folk, some quite well known in certain fields. Email addresses exchanged. Whether it comes to anything, though, I shall see.

I met the editor of a major geriatrics journal. He introduced himself. I said, oh yes, pleasure to meet you. You rejected my article.
(I said this with good nature)
He was very contrite, actually! I said, no, don´t worry, hide like a rhino etc.

Lots of vino, lots of food. My arse feels like it is growing.

I would now like to relate something that happened a couple of nights ago.

I was at the conference welcome drinks. I was alone, knew nobody. Some shit had gone down (without further elaboration) and I was feeling sad, nostalgic and lonely. I missed everybody.

Despite this, I went out and mingled anyway, fortified by quite a few glasses of vino tinto. I met an Australian. A prof. of medicine from Italy. I was feeling pretty proud of my valour. The organising committee had put on a flamenco show and a show with a dancing andalusian horse.

At the end of the night, everyone left quite quickly, and I found myself nearly alone in a big room. The sads hit quite quickly. I drunk-dialled a friend, it was quite early in the morning for them, and they were still groggy so I rang off.

I got up to find a taxi. I was sobbing and ready to catch the next flight home.

I felt a hand on my arm and something in spanish. A small, elfin, concerned face was looking at me.

“are you alright¨, she said in a heavy spanish accent.
“just gotta get (sniff) a taxi (sniff)”
“joo here alone”
“yes”
“noooooo!”

Then she started talking in Spanish, and all of a sudden, about 5 other ladies descended on me, making sympathetic noises.

They introduced themselves as members/workers for the spanish geriatrics society, the organising body of the conference. I was introduced to el presidente, Juan antonio. I was even introduced to the flamenco dancer, Pilar.

“joo like manzanilla” “vino del Malaga”
“joo come out with us, si?”

I was whisked into the car, and I met the ladies- Rosa, Elena, Maria. They interrogated me as to what was upsetting me. I told them.
“Don worry. We look after joo”

So with these lovely people I was brought out to have tapas and wine. I had a lovely time, listening to their ebullient chatter, even though I did not understand them.

They rescued me, that night.

Off to dinner tonight, where I hope to see these gorgeous ladies again. Off to sweden mañana.

Photos pending. Hasta la vista.