In less than 10 days I will be leaving Madrid. I can’t believe how quickly this semester has gone by. I can’t say that I’m not excited to be going home, though. I’m leaving Spain when the program ends on December 20th like everyone else, and then I fly out of London on Christmas Eve and arrive home to California that same evening because of the time difference. This is the longest I have ever been away from home and…
Now that the end of my time abroad is just around the corner, I’ve decided to reflect on experience in Spain and create a list of advice that I wish someone had told me when I first got here. Experiment with different ways of getting around early on. You may think you have found the most efficient way to get to school or your favorite cafe, but there are usually other alternative routes or methods that are easier, quicker,…
I would say it’s officially fall in Madrid, as of a few weeks ago. It’s not as cold as Poughkeepsie, but I have to bundle up in a jacket and scarf and closed-toed shoes with socks. But Spaniards are already bundled up in winter coats, hats, and gloves like it’s winter. It’s no longer warm enough to casually go for a stroll in retiro park, but it’s the perfect excuse to get a hot coffee almost every morning. Luckily, for…
I can’t believe that my program in Madrid is now more than halfway done. This is the longest I have ever been away from home. It’s certainly hard at times being away from my family and friends, and I’ve gone through the ups and downs of home sickness already more than once, but I’m trying to remind myself to take advantage of the limited time I have in Europe. I finally bought my plane ticket home (I wasn’t on the…
A lot has happened since my last post. For starters, my parents came to Madrid to visit me about two weeks ago. They had just finished a bike trip around Cataluña, the northwestern autonomous region home to Barcelona. We spent the half-week they were here in Spain running from museum to museum (El Museo del Prado and The Thyssen), walking from end to end of Madrid despite my repeated pleas for a taxi, and eating delicious food that was definitely…
I am now officially in Madrid living with a host family in an apartment that is only a five-minute walk from Puerta del Sol, the center of the city. I couldn’t have asked for a better location, and there is a metro stop right outside my apartment. The rastro, the biggest flea market I’ve ever seen that takes place every Sunday, is also just a couple of blocks from my home. I have my own room with plenty of space….
Greetings from Madrid! We touched down in Madrid two and a half weeks ago after a general orientation in Galicia, an autonomous region in the northwest corner of the country. Life in Madrid has made a few major changes in our day-to-day lives. First and foremost, we’ve all moved in with our host families, which was an experience in and of itself. Su Casa es Mi Casa I lucked out with my host family. It’s just Mama Tata, Don Juaquin,…
In my previous post, I wrote that one of the opportunities about studying abroad is the chance to travel easily to new, incredible places (when not in school). This past weekend, I traveled to Lagos, Portugal with a few friends! In Madrid, the 1st and 2nd of May are holidays—Spain observes International Worker’s Day on the 1st, and the 2nd is a local Madrid holiday commemorating the 1808 uprising against French rule. Today, neither International Worker’s Day nor el dos de…
On the eve of my spring break, I feel quite happy to have experienced all that I have in the first part of my semester, and was inspired to write in a different style than that of my previous posts. Things to be grateful for… In Madrid 1) Parque Retiro Much like Central Park of New York City, Parque Retiro is plopped in the middle of the city, offering a tranquil refuge from metropolitan life. Here, one can walk, run, paddle…
I am now very much immersed in life in Madrid, and a significant part of my life here is my university studies. The process of choosing and enrolling in classes took an unusual amount of time for me, because I decided to take two classes at a second university that had a later start than the program’s home university. In total, I am taking five classes this semester. Three are at Universidad Carlos III—the university where the Vassar-Wesleyan Madrid program…