Los primeros días #HogsAbroad in Spain

I was going to write this in Spanish, but I know most of the people reading this probably wouldn’t understand, so I’m going to only put in imperative Spanish words when necessary. Okay, so Sunday, we get to Madrid right? Keep in mind the plane ride was 8 hours AND Madrid is 7 hours ahead of Arkansas and Kansas. Great! First thing I realized was they don’t drive on the left side of the road.. literally thought everyone in Europe did, shows you how uncultured I was. Then I met Dáma. Dáma is my host mom. She is the sassiest, but sweetest women I could have asked to live with. She always says, everyday, “Yo estoy locaaaaa” while she’s dancing to Despacito...Amazing. Then we kind of get to know each other and what not and I soon realized I would solely be speaking in Spanish because she knows no words in English. She told me she loves to cook and thinks she’s a pretty good one too.. Man was she right. I don’t normally like eating things with just vegetables, but whatever it was, it was gooooood. Then I met my roommate Addison, she’s from Auburn and she’s so sweet, love her. Then later, Savannah, her friend and my other roommate showed up, so then we all kind of hung out and what not. Well then I had to go meet up with my school to figure out where to go on Monday morning, turns out that wasn’t the right place, I’ll get to that later. Well then my friends and I went to eat at Plaza Mayor/Sol.. pretty good.

Monday rolled around and I had to be to class by 8:45, right? So I went to where we were told to go on Sunday and that door was locked. So I spent about 20 minutes walking around the block to find it.. I finally did. Then I had to take a placement exam.. FUN!!! So after we did that and toured the campus I went home to eat with Dáma. Siestas are my favorite part of the day ;) Then I got ready to go out to dinner with my people. We tried to go to this rooftop to eat, but they had an event so we walked probably over 3 miles that night trying to find where we should eat, finally decided on “El Tigre.” After some tapas later, we went to the art place that had a rooftop bar, and let me tell you.. SO freaking pretty. It was SO cold though. That was definitely the coolest view I have had of Madrid so far.

Tuesday we got placed in our classes. I’m in the middle to upper intermediate classes, even though I think I should be higher because everything we’re going to learn, I already have, but I figure I kind of want to perfect my skills. So we did that and then Tuesday some of the girls and I hung out for dinner and then decided to go get churros from the best churro place in Madrid.. I was honestly a little disappointed because they didn’t have cinnamon/sugar on them, but I guess I just didn’t order the right kind.

I’m currently getting over jet lag and having allergies/a cold, so fingers crossed I stay feeling better than I did yesterday/this morning.

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Hola! I'm Cassady and I'm a 20 year old college student from the University of Arkansas who gets to live her dream in Spain.

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Political Science major Cassady Curtis is spending the Summer 2018 term in Spain with our U of A Faculty-Led: Spanish in Madrid program with the help of our our Office of Study Abroad Scholarship.

Read more from Cassady at https://cassadyann.weebly.com/

Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/