First Week in Madrid (part 1)

First of all...sorry this is a little out of order, I have to go back and finish writing the 8th-11th, but they will be out!

jueves el 12 de enero

Today was our second official day of classes! I had my Spanish class, which has about ten students (perfect) and is at 9am (less than ideal). But, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Spanish is my only class…which means my weekend begins at 10:30 Thursday morning! Of course, part of those weekends will be spent struggling through textbooks in Spanish, but even that will be exciting because I’ll be in a café or library or plaza in Madrid J Most of the Spanish class today was a tour of the Instituto, and since I haven’t said much about it yet, I’ll give you a quick summary. The building was built in the late 1800s by an American couple who came to Spain (eventually settling in Madrid) as missionaries right after Spain stopped being an officially Catholic country. They realized there was a need for women’s education, and founded a women’s college, which eventually grew in size and popularity enough to merit the construction of a large, handsome building in Madrid. Today, the Instituto Internacional is home to the Madrid campus of several US universities’ abroad program (including Boston University, USC, Syracuse and University of Albany) and offers American English classes to Spanish students. The building is 4 floors with a basement (which is the library). Stanford has half the fourth floor for offices, a computer lab and mini-library for the students, and a classroom. My classes, which are all in Spanish and taught by professors born and raised in Spain, are all on either the third or fourth floors. There is a (overpriced) cafeteria on the main floor, which I plan to avoid unless I get an insatiable craving for bagels (as this is one of the few places in Madrid where they can be found). I am pleased to say that I have been able to keep my usually insatiable craving for delicious hot chocolate at bay by stopping in to the innumerable cafes all over Madrid. Since we eat only a very small breakfast (a coffee, or for me tea, and toast with maybe olive oil and tomato paste or a little turkey or cheese) and don’t have lunch (the main meal of the day) until around 3, it is quite common for Spaniards to take multiple trips to a café between meals for a warm drink and a snack. Needless to say, this is one piece of Spanish culture to which I have no problem adjusting.

After Spanish class, Laura (who is one of the fantastic staff of the BOSP Madrid program) took us on a tour of the barrio (neighborhood) surrounding el Instituto. Many cafes, bars and restaurants, a great place for cheap shopping (where I will be returning later to get a hairdryer), pharmacies, markets and a mini-grocery, stores to buy our textbooks and other school supplies, a post office and many others are all within a few blocks.

I’m absolutely loving living in a city in general and Madrid in particular. It’s only been two days, but I already know that when I go back to Stanford I will miss the convenience of the metro, having everything close by, and always having people out on the streets. It’s energizing to walk through Madrid, but not overwhelming. I also bought a prepaid Spanish cell phone to communicate with people here in Spain, which will be very helpful…leaving people facebook messages and hoping they get them in time is not the best method of communication! Luckily, I’ve had a summer of practice in communicating things like “let’s meet at this hostel in Rome between 3 and 4pm,” so a week without cell phones where everyone lives in the same city and goes to the same place for class every day is really not that bad.

I had la comida en casa with mi familia Española today. As always, we were watching TV (usually talk shows or news) and commenting on what we saw (mainly Mercedes and Merte, as Mariu was working a shift at the hospital and much of the Spanish news goes over Rachel’s and my heads…not only because of the language, but also because of the many intricacies in the Spanish governmental, social, economic, social/cultural, etc. situation that we don’t understand).

viernes el 13 de enero

Normally we wouldn’t have class on Friday, but since we were still traveling on Monday, we mode up those classes for this week on Friday. So, I had flamenco again (still awesome, today we did more steps and learned the paso roble, a traditional Spanish dance done in pairs, and I had my flamenco skirt and shoes which makes dancing A LOT more fun) and bioethics again, which was pretty intense because our professor (who is a kick-ass woman MD PhD) asked us how we would tell our pregnant patient that she had cancer of the uterus (all in Spanish of course) and, for the first time since the professor was sick on Wednesday, Women in Art: a case study in the Madrid museums. Not going to lie, the second part of the title was a big reason I’m taking the class (along with the fact it covers two GERs, and since the bioethics class counts for my HumBio major this quarter is going to be surprisingly productive graduation-wise). I discovered today that every Wednesday except for two during the quarter will take place in one of the major museums in Madrid, usually the Prado and also the Reina Sophia and the Thyssen. Coolest class ever?

In the evening, we met up with “los estudiantes españolas” to chat with them to practice our Spanish and to ask them all the best places to go and, of course, learn more colorful new words in Spain Spanish. We went on a pretty long walk through major areas in Madrid, starting out in Puerta del Sol (I live a 5 minute walk from here…which is one of the best locations in the city), walking part of Gran Via, going to Templo de Debod (which is super romantic and offers stunning views of Madrid) and checking out the Plaza de España, among other places. After this, my roommate Rachel and I headed back to our casa to cenar with Mercedes, Merche and Mariu. As always, dinner was delicious (we had jamon serrano YUM) and the conversation was interesting, always learning new words and tidbits about Spanish culture and current events, especially the Duchess of Alba de Tormes, who has more recognized titles than any other noble, including the queen of England.

Tonight we went out to El Tigre, a bar in Chueca (the gay district in Madrid which is super fun and trendy and where I happen to live…so this bar is literally a block away from my casa) that serves huge delicious plates of tapas with their drinks. The drinks are also yummy, although quite sweet (the sangria is served with a layer of sugar on the bottom). After we went to Moondance and Joy, two clubs just off Sol. This was super convenient for me, because it was a quick 5-minute walk home at the end of the night. The metro and buses run from 6am-1am, and there are also very safe night buses that run from 1am-6am, so even if I didn’t live close it would be ok. We also discovered Chocolateria San Gines, a café that serves chocolate con churros (among other things…but really, if you have chocolate con churros you don’t need anything else) at 5:30am.