First week in Madrid and visit to Toledo!

Hi everyone! So good news: I have an apartment. I met up with my roommate, Mel, later on Monday and we went out for food and walked around Madrid. We started looking for apartments on Monday and ended up finding ours and moving in on Tuesday night. The one we took was the 5th that we saw. The first 4 were interesting. Some were tiny closets, some were extremely expensive, a third was great but we couldn't move in for a week, and another the landlady seemed overbearing and like she would come and check on us following her rules all the time. The one we took has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a main room with a futon that pulls out to a double bed, a kitchen, and a courtyard/patio area. The apartment is a bit small and not perfect, but we were able to move in right away and have our own space which definitely made the transition process from the US to Madrid a lot easier and was exactly what I needed.To know where I would be sleeping each night took one additional stress out of the picture.

The hardest part about getting the apartment was going through the lease. Since our landlord doesn't speak any English, we had to go through all 13 clauses in Spanish! It was so interesting though. He was so patient and thorough, making sure we saw the numbers on the gas and water and checking each light switch and outlet and every detail. It was definitely reassuring.

There was a definitely low point though. The night we moved into the apartment, we left and then came back a few hours later. When we left we locked up our apartment. There are 2 locks, the one on top and the deadbolt on the bottom. When we got back, we could not open the door. We tried all of our keys and could hear the locks moving in the door but the door wouldn't budge. We tried every combination of locked and unlocked that we could think of, but at 11:00 at night, this is the last thing you want to be doing. Not to mention, we had moved in so all of our stuff was locked in this apartment and we couldn't get in. Oh and also, Europe is very conscious of electricity, so the lights in the hallway turn off every 2 minutes. By the end of it, we had one of us standing by the hall switch to turn the lights back on. After 25 minutes, we went and knocked on a neighbor's door to get help. A woman came out and tried to open our door too. After about 5 minutes of that, she gave us back the keys and said "lo siento" which isn't just 'I'm sorry', its apparently a way to show empathy and completely sincerity. (In the states we use "lo siento" all the time when saying I'm sorry, but that's not actually what it means. It translates to more of "I feel for you"). Anyway, so after she left, we both are an inch from breaking down and crying. I was wondering if everything was a scam; if all of our things were stolen and we'd paid him all of this money and he had just ran. We tried calling the land lord, but its 11:40 at night by now, he isn't awake, or he's just not picking up because its a scam. So I put the key back in the door and just shove the door and voila! It opened! We both were just about as excited and relieved as a person can be. It took us another day to figure out what had happened (which is just a matter that you have to hold the key all the way to the left, pull the door towards you, then turn the key further to the left, and then it will swing in). Very tricky, but now that we know it, its a lot better! And, the woman brought us soup to eat later that night.

Two nights after moving in, we had 5 other people that we've met come over for sangría and vino to just hang out and talk. It was so much fun. A really good group! Of course, 6 of the 7 of us are Americans, but we're hoping to branch out more once the Spanish intensive course starts on Monday the 31st.  Our goal is for each of us to make friends with at least 1 non-American.

While we've been here, we also had the orientation day on Wednesday (so my third day here). That was where we got to meet everyone and learn where everything is and all of the details of the school. I was really planning on Wednesday being the day when I finally felt like I knew what is going on and finally felt less culture shock and was settled in. Of course, that didn't happen. Wednesday was probably my most stressful day. Not only did my schedule not work well (I have classes all 5 days of the week, so its harder to travel) but also it took them an hour to figure out how I could log in to the computers and they didn't make it clear when classes start or how to change your schedule. Needless to say, I felt completely lost and since Spain is such a relaxed country, they have slow processes and aren't organized. Lovely. Hopefully everything will work out next week. I'm going to go back and talk to the coordinators for a third time. Cross your fingers!

Good news is a group of 6 of us went to Toledo! It is beautiful! Its a city just 45 minutes south of Madrid by bus. We went on Friday morning and came back Saturday night. The city is a fort city, so its on a hill and is walled in. Interesting fact: Madrid was actually built as a small town north of Toledo to protect it. That way, if people were going to invade Toledo from the north, Madrid would slow them down and give Toledo time to prepare.

Also, the city was built to be difficult to invade so it is hard to navigate. They don't use the grid system to make it confusing on purpose. Luckily Nora, one of the girls we traveled with, was an excellent navigator and got us everywhere we needed to go. We call her "Nora the Explorer"! And she even sings the Dora song for us lol.

The city was beautiful. We saw the cathedral, a synagogue, la puerta del sol which is the look out for Toledo, Alcazár which is the highest point in the city, and went out for tapas and drinks at night. Also, Toledo is known for their marzapan (mázapan) which is a sugar almond candy, so of course we needed to buy a bunch of that. It was amazing. You need to get it "hecho a mano" (hand made) if you ever go, but it is excellent. Just be prepared to not eat too much because it is basically pure sugar. It was an amazing experience and a great way to start off studying abroad.

There was also a beautiful view out in Toledo. My facebook profile picture has me there right now. It was just a cliff that looked out over the river and on the other side you could see the more rural area for Toledo. Gorgeous! It is such a serene area that just shows up in the middle of a really crowded city.

All in all, everything is going really well! The only downside is that I want to change my classes to get a better schedule and feel very lost, and that our apartment doesn't have internet yet. Hopefully I will get both of those things fixed this next week and everything will be peachy!

I'm planning on going to France in a couple of weeks to visit Sarah Erx from my dance team at school and my group here was talking about going to Greece in a few weeks too. I hope everyone is having a great time back at home :)

|Buenos días!

Arrived in Madrid

It took me 2 flights to get to Spain. The first was from Chicago to Dulles. On that flight they announced any scoring for the Bears-Packers game, unfortunately it was 14-0 when I got off the flight. I was able to see the end of the first half in the airport before taking off again for Madrid. Interestingly enough, my second flight was an Airbus 330 and was gigantic, 8 seats across and I´d guess at least 30 rows; only 83 people were on my flight though. This meant that later in the flight I just put all of the arm rests up in a middle section and lay across 4 seats and took a nice nap. Best sleep I´ve ever gotten on a plane. Plus, we each got our own TV to watch movies and what not. It was very nice, I highly recommend Aer Lingus. The woman sitting next to me was from Spain and didn´t speak English so we talked a bunch on the flight and she helped me practice my Spanish, she was so friendly. Excellent way to get welcomed to Spain.

Once I got off the plane, Carlos and his friend Javier picked me up. They drove me back to the hostel so I could drop off my bags and then took me around Madrid so I could see where the university is, where I need to go for my orientation on Wednesday, and they helped me find a citibank ATM and get a cellphone. All of this was done in Spanish, but I think I´m handling it pretty well. Carlos and Javier were patient and explained things in English when I needed, but for the most part everything went really well.

Now I´m just waiting for Mel, my future roommate, to wake up and come out to the lounge. Once she does that, we are going to go apartment hunting so that we have somewhere to sleep tomorrow night. Carlos said that he would be happy to look at apartments with us if we need him to/make sure we aren´t getting scammed. So far everything is going really well and I don´t have any jet lag. I´ll let you all know how it goes!

Introduction

For my first post, I thought I would give everyone a general overview.

I´m studying abroad in Madrid, Spain this semester. Yes, I am studying abroad for my last semester of college which is a bit unorthodox, but since I waited, I am going to have the easiest semester abroad and don´t have to worry about fitting in an internship for the summer when I get back! I´m also staying an additional week and a half after my semester ends to travel more and just relax. Maybe I'll go check out the beaches of Spain since I'll be there through the end of June.

Speaking of weather, did you know its 43 degrees in Madrid right now? That's over 30 degrees warmer than here! I leave this cold and go to Spain tomorrow morning, January 23rd. I have booked a hostel for my first night in Spain because believe it or not, I don´t have a place to live yet! I decided that I wanted to stay in an apartment and in order to do that you really need to wait to get one until you are actually there and can go looking. So, one of the other 3 girls from U of I that are studying abroad is going to be my roommate and we will look on Monday.

As for contacting me once I am there, I won't be using my American cell phone as I'm sure you guessed. I'm going to use gchat to keep in touch with people back in the states, so feel free to send me a message at kelly.boger@gmail.com anytime!

I'll make another post once I am in Madrid and have place to live. Keep your fingers crossed!