Not goodbye, just seeya soon

So you may remember the restaurant La Squala from when I posted about a goodbye brunch I had with some colleagues back in January. Well this past Friday I had another chance to eat there—for the same sad reason of saying goodbye—this time for dinner. It was a really lovely evening, which started with four of us getting there before the others, and chatting about all sorts of things. I snapped this picture of my colleague with Othman—I love their easy-going friendship.

I took the opportunity of us being few at the table to present my friend with a small gift I painted for her. Othman drew it back in February and it took me ages to finish painting it, but when I was about 1/3 of the way done I decided it would be the perfect gift for Rim—not least because she's moving out of the country and it's flat and light! She also shares my love for turtles so that works out nicely too.

Others arrived and we all ate delicious food, and talked and laughed and talked some more. The neighboring tables must have been a bit confused by the mishmash of French, English and Arabic, but we were all able to follow!

Three English teachers, featuring a bottle, menus and lots of hair!

Rim and I became very good friends this year and I'll definitely miss her! From team-teaching to shopping, from getting waxed to birthday dinners, we've had a really fun year. We're all crossing our fingers that her next job is in a country close to Morocco!! We actually worked together for almost a year before really noticing each other and becoming friends, but I'm just really happy for the time we did have. 

Finally about 3.5 hours after we got there we made our way out, with full bellies and big smiles, but not without first taking a girls picture:

Actually MANY girl pics, with Othman snapping them... I found this one in the bunch, absolutely loved it and had to post it. That looks very much like a "are you done yet??" look.

And we rounded off with an everyone picture. We can thank the waiter for the slight blur, but to be fair my camera can be a bit confusing. It was a wonderful night with lovely people, and was over too soon.