Afterthought

Ciao tutti,

I just realised I completely forgot to tell you all about the gorgeous Christmas party my employers at Corporate English have thrown! There had been talk of a Christmas party for quite a while but nobody really knew what was going to happen until the last weekend before the start of Christmas break. As you may remember, the staff at Corporate English like to spoil their employees from time to time and after our bi-monthly teacher meetings they usually take us (the teachers) out for dinner and cocktails afterwards. This often means we end up in a very hip bar and dance the night away, while the company picks up the bill!

Obviously, the Christmas party had to top that. And it did! Firstly, partners were included in the invitation so this was a very nice way for Olaf to get to know my colleagues. Secondly, we went to a restaurant near Corso Como which was quite nice - we were actually the first ones there because nobody else was on time, which was quite strange and disappointing as being the first is NOT the fashionable thing to do - and got to eat our fill of a lavish primo and a succulent secondo - and obviously drank copious amounts of wine. It was a very nice evening and we were just a tad tipsy when we left the restaurant.

Obviously, our conversation topics had long since changed to booze, drugs and sex (if I have to hear the phrase 'getting your tits out' one more time I'm going to kill somebody!), so it was by then really time to really partying. And party we did! We went to 11 Store, a very cool and fashionable bar slash disco - although we didn't really know it existed before that evening, how's that for being fashionable?! - where the ONLY table in the middle of the bar was reserved for us. We toasted to the holidays with some lovely lush limoncello and cocktails and just started dancing, dancing and dancing. In the end, we went home far too late (because I had promised our guests Margo and Marieke that we'd be home by 1 a.m. at the latest), but hey, how often do you get to go to a Christmas party?!?!

Anyway, I'm really glad that we didn't have pay for this evening but am wondering how much they spent. It can't have been cheap! I really appreciate their gesture and understand and support their aim - having a good relationship with their employees and encouraging ties between those employees is very important to them and the attempt to make this heterogeneous group of people feel like something like a family is commendable - but it was quite unnecessary to spend this much. We might as well have gone to a regular bar around the corner and then we would have had an equally great time! But then again, I shouldn't complain. I'm just happy I've found this school! Aren't you all jealous?

I'm sorry if this post sounds like me bragging about my fantastic employer, that is not my objective. I just wanted to share this wonderful experience with you. Hope your Christmas parties were great too... As Olaf is in the kitchen working on Christmas and I'm surrounded by lovely scents that act as premonitions about tonight's dinner, I wish you all - once again - a merry Christmas and buon appetito!

Buon natale, Fe