Hola Madrid

Move to Madrid - Check ✓

Safely made it to Madrid. Norwegian airlines, despite being a budget airline, was phenomenal. 10/10 recommend. The 6.5 hour layover in Gatwick was rough, but hey, I'm in España!

For the next 9 months I will be an assistant English teacher. I am participating in the Auxiliar de Conversación program that is run through the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Despite teaching 8th grade math this summer, I will be working in a grade 1-6 primary school called CEIP Felipe II. The school is located a little over an hour north of Madrid in El Escorial (apparently the historical residence of the King of Spain)!

I start school on Monday, October 2nd at 8:50am. There, I will get my schedule, find out what teacher(s) I'm working with, class grade(s) I'll be assistant teaching, and who my co-auxiliares are! I am already in touch with my co-workers, but we have yet to meet. We have already been helping each other with daily tasks and challenges we have encountered along the way (for example, do I take bus 61, 661 or Princesa 89? Because GoogleMaps lists all of them)!

The city of Madrid is beautiful! More amazing than I could have ever imagined. The people are so nice, the tempo my pace (despacio), it is so easy to get around, and I am eating bread everyday. What more could I ask for? Oh yeah, and I'm living with my two childhood friends.

We started out at the Cat's Hostel, taking advantage of free walking tours, bar crawls and cheap accommodation. Highly recommend if you are looking for affordable and fun accommodation in Madrid. For the next month, we are temporarily staying at an Airbnb in the neighborhood of Lavapiés. The apartment we secured has a move in date of November 1st. There, we will be living in the residential neighborhood of Chamberí, which is closer to the Moncloa bus station that we need to commute to our jobs.

For now, we are settling in and exploring our new city. The weather has been perfect: sunny in the low 80s. We are working on getting our TIE (identification card required for us to stay in Spain), securing a monthly youth metro card (no walk-ins sadly) and Empadramiento (it is legally required for us to register with the city of Madrid as temporary residents). I already found a taco place (called "Takos"), there is a pizza place right on the corner of our Airbnb (approved by an actual Italian friend of a friend), and a cheap Greek place two blocks down (αγάπη μου). Paella is the featured Spanish dish - however we've been told Madrid actually isn't the place to eat Paella. That being said, I had 3 euro Paella at our sister hostel and thought it was AMAZING! I can't wait to try real nice Paella.

We attended orientation on the 28th of September (arriving late because we went the wrong way on the metro - but really we arrived on time because they didn't start on time. In fact, they started a half an hour late - Oh Spain!). There we were told about a Spanish course we could take. There's a course 4 times a week, two hours a week for 3 months. It sounds like a deal (I did the math, about 5 euros a month). I'll probably take the placement test on Monday and see what happens! We also got a friendly warning from the State Department to watch out for pick pockets and to always carry a healthy dose of paranoia. We also learned what to do if we fall in love with a Spaniard LOL.

The most amazing feature of Madrid so far has been how at ease I feel in this place. I didn't feel this level of comfort so immediately in Athens or Melbourne (then again, I got very lost in Athens my first day and in Melbourne I had to drag my 60lb suitcase across the city for 30 minutes in 90 degree weather). I ran into my old neighbors before I left Ashland who told me that they would move to Madrid in a heartbeat if they could. Even though I haven't been here a week, I can see why.