Huelga desconvocado!

Ahhh, such good news!!  On Mondays one of my teachers, Lola, drives me and another teacher (also named Lola) to school.  After teaching with Lola (the first one) for my first hour between 9 and 10, I usually go and sit in the office for the gap between my two classes.  I do things like check my email, etc.  Last Monday though, I had to go to Molina de Segura, a neighboring town, to pick up my NIE, or Número de Identificación de Extranjeros.  It's not too difficult, the bus that I ride every morning passes through that town.  It comes by my stop a few minutes after every hour.  So I could ride the 10 o'clock bus to Molina and take the 11 o'clock bus back to school.  Simple.  So I left my class a few minutes early and ran down to the bus stop.  I arrived in plenty of time and so I sat down on the bench and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  After 40 minutes I walked back up the hill to my school.  I have to say, I was pretty much in a state of shock.  That bus is sometimes late, but it always comes.

So I went into the office and asked two teachers there, "Qué pasó?  Estaba esperando por 40 minutas y el autobús nunca vino."  (What happened?  I was waiting for 40 minutes and the bus never came!)  So they discussed in for a few minutes saying things like:  I'm not really sure, maybe it's at another time, maybe...etc.  You get the idea.  Then one of them says, "Ah!  Hay una huelga!"

"Qué es una huelga??"  Let me get to the point already, a "huelga" is a strike.  So, the bus drivers were on strike.  Now I'm really panicking here.  I was driven to school but I usually take a bus home.  How was I going to get home?  I have absolutely no experience with strikes at all.  So maybe it's common knowledge that strikes don't completely stop production or maybe that's something specific to government jobs, or  transportation jobs, or maybe it's just a Spain thing, but the strike was only on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays and the buses still ran, but less frequently.  More like a bus every 2 hours instead of every hour.

Today though, is the last day of the strike.  Huelga Desconvocada.  I had to look up that last word, but it means: called off.  Yay!  Now I don't have to worry about how I'm going to get home tomorrow.  Last week a teacher drove me so I didn't wait for an hour.

And I did get my card.  Isn't it pretty?