My friend Morgan and I are living with the sweetest woman named Araceli. She is divorced and her children have all moved out, so she keeps students at her home for a living. We were really worried about our living situation at first because our apartment is an hour away from our school by metro, but we actually haven’t had any issues so far!
The first couple of days we have been getting ourselves familiar with the city. There are 26 of us in my program but we’ve all separated into smaller groups. I love the group I’ve been hanging out with! The first day we got here we got situated with our families and then had time to explore the city.
This past weekend my group wanted to plan a trip to Granada, but since we planned it so last minute we had issues with finding a hotel and purchasing bus tickets. We were all pretty bummed that our plans didn’t work out BUT it was a blessing in disguise because we ended up having the best weekend ever in Madrid.
If you guys have been following the news you know that Real Madrid recently won the championship against Juventus. Saturday morning, my group walked around Sol and tried to find Real Madrid jerseys to wear during the game. We asked a group of chanting locals wearing Real Madrid gear where we could find jerseys. One thing led to another, and we ended up having beer with the locals! I was able to practice my Spanish with one of the older men in the group named Manuel. He was super nice and talked to me about his family and where he grew up in Spain.
Saturday night my group met up at Subway (yes, the sandwich place) to watch the game because all of the bars were packed. It was so exciting to be surrounded by locals who are so passionate about their team!
After watching the game we went to our favorite bar Dubliners. We met a bunch of Australians and people all around the US including Chicago, Florida, Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Maine. We got a huge group together and all walked to El Palacio de Cibeles. Hundreds of people gathered there to celebrate Real Madrid’s victory!
I felt like I was really experiencing Madrid’s culture that night. I met a guy from Florida who had studied abroad in Madrid in the past but was revisiting to celebrate graduating med school. His advice to me was that it is always okay to take your time in Spain, there’s never any rush, and most importantly, to go where the locals go.
I’m incredibly excited to see where the rest of my trip takes me. ¡Viva España!
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Follow Anabel on her journey at https://boozabroad.wordpress.com/
To find out more about the U of A Spanish in Madrid summer program, visit http://studyabroad.uark.edu/madrid.
