Hola de Madrid!

What an incredible, busy, overwhelming, fascinating, exciting, taxing, and wonderful week it has been. After just six days of being in Spain, I feel like I already have so much to talk about that I could go on for hours. It’s hard to know where to begin when there’s so much to say - and I can’t lie, it’s very overwhelming!

I flew out of Philadelphia on Saturday night and arrived in Madrid on Sunday, giving myself a day to catch up on sleep and decompress before orientation started on Monday. I’m so glad I did this, as it gave me time to walk around, explore, and rest for over 12 hours! After taking a taxi to the hotel, I was feeling very ambitious, so I ventured out into the city without a working phone (yet), but with plenty of gumption! It took me over an hour to figure out the train/metro system (no, those are not synonyms here), but once I got to where I was going, I was very proud of myself (and sweaty) for not giving up!

Everyone else in the orientation group arrived on Monday, and it was so much fun meeting everyone. My roommate, Grace, is from Ohio, and we immediately hit it off. She studied abroad here, so a group of us went to her favorite dinner spot - TKO Tacos -  and got tacos for 1€ and margaritas for 5€. What a steal!

Orientation officially started on Tuesday morning, and the CIEE staff was so kind and excited for us. We spent 10 am to 2 pm in a conference room each day, going over topics like housing, transportation, insurance, our role as auxiliares, cultural differences, and much more. We took a lot of breaks, which were much needed and much appreciated because everyone was battling jet lag…and just feeling extremely overwhelmed! 

It was fascinating to me that we got to rest from 2–5 pm every day because that’s not how a typical day in the U.S. looks. That being said, it’s been 90–100°F every day, so I now have a better understanding of why siestas exist - it’s too hot to be doing anything else, and you have to save your energy for later!

We were divided into groups for the second half of the day, which included walking tours with the orientation leaders, as well as getting tapas and drinks in different parts of Madrid. We walked around 15,000 to 20,000 steps each day and only took the metro, which is so accessible, affordable, and environmentally friendly.

As for the people?! I’ve already met such incredible friends. Everyone is from all over - Texas, California, South Carolina, New York, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, New Jersey, and many other states. Every single person has been so kind and hopeful for this year. Even the people who are less social still seem very excited to be here and for this experience.

What’s been really helpful to keep in mind is that everyone here is like-minded and open-minded. We all decided to make a huge change in our lives, pack up all of our belongings, and move to a foreign country for a year. On top of that, all sixty people at this orientation are doing the immersion program, which means we all chose to live with host families and take Spanish classes over the next few weeks. A lot of us were relieved when we realized how easy it would be to make friends, since we all have somewhat similar views of the world.

We’ve already done so much, seen so much, learned so much, and shared so many stories, laughs, tapas, and tinto de veranos that it’s hard to believe it’s only been five days. I got a little emotional when we visited our language school yesterday because it was so beautiful and the staff was so kind that it really hit me what an incredible experience this is. I feel so wildly fortunate to be here - to be meeting all these people and learning so much Spanish - and it just feels absolutely surreal that this is our life now. Of course I can’t possibly write everything down or ever explain it all in full, but the first week was absolutely wonderful.

As for what’s next, we are now with our host families and will be living with them for the next few weeks while taking language classes every day at Tandem Escuela Internacional. Clara y Pipo have been so welcoming already, and their house is unbelievably beautiful. They have art everywhere and a beautiful garden, as well as a really sweet dog. There is so much more to come, but everything so far has been better than I ever could’ve imagined.