SUNDAY
Sunday was our first real day of orientation. We met at the office (which is right next to el famoso museo nacional centro del arte Reina Sofia) at 10:00 and had presentations about various themes such as using the study center website and being safe and what to do in case of emergencies, bought our mobile phones, and were introduced to the network of students who are from Spain and go to la Universidad Carlos III with us and accompany us for various activities and volunteer their time to help us acostumbrarnos a la vida madrileña. Their names are Adriana, Alejandra, Almudena, Guillermo, and Carlos and they're all MUY majos (cool and nice). Then at night we did a walking tour of Madrid. It was right as the sun was setting so it was incredibly beautiful. We walked past important sites like el museo nacional del Prado, el Palacio Real (the royal palace), la catedral de Santa María la Real de La Almudena (a Catholic cathedral), la Plaza Mayor, etc. Then we stopped at a bar and had some tapas for dinner. We got home from dinner at about 12:30 and I went straight to bed!
MONDAY
Monday we started orientation at 9:00 and had presentations about our host families and being comfortable in our homes, classes, the university Carlos III, how to register for classes, and played a name game to make sure we all knew each others names. In our group, there are 13 students including myself. Some are from the east coast (Boston, New York), one from Tennessee, one from Georgia, California, Ohio, Portland, etc. For lunch we went to a restaurant called Ginger in la plaza de Angél. Then we had some more presentations at the office about the cultural agenda, excursions, internships, etc. At night we went to el Museo Sorolla to see a special exhibit. I thought it was a really cool museum. It's in the house where Joaquín Sorolla used to live and has a lot of his furniture there, obviously many of his paintings, and a beautiful garden. After going, I KNEW Dave would love it and I want to go with my family when they come :) Then we came home and I had dinner with mi anfintriona en casa at about 10:30, chatted for maybe an hour or so and then went to bed.
TUESDAY
We started orientation again at 9:00 and had presentations about making goals and how to achieve them, blogging for the CIEE website, more about the cultural agenda, using our UC3M email, and volunteering. There is a non-profit in Madrid called t-oigo which has American students go to the homes of young deaf children who have hearing aides and help teach them English! I think it sounds like a great program and I've emailed Dale, who presented to us, and hopefully will be starting to volunteer with them soon! At about 1:00, we went to the train station and took the train to la Universidad Carlos III for the first day of our orientation there. The University is GREAT. Their library is SUPER cool, they have a brand new gym that is really nice, and the campus is pretty and not too big that I'll get lost. I didn't take any pictures, but if you're interested in seeing what the university is like the website is uc3m.es. It's a short train ride to Getafe, which is south of Madrid. We had lunch at the University and then had a guided tour of campus by Carlos and Guillermo. We then took our oral exams, which are part of our placement examination. We then had time to start registering or looking at classes in case we weren't sure yet which ones we wanted to take. We got back to Madrid at about 8:00 and had a little bit of time to rest and eat dinner and then it was off to bed.
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| Me, Lauren, Kendyl, and Jennifer in the Getafe train station after the first day of UC3M Orientation. |
Today we met at 8:30 at the train station to head to UC3M. We had orientation there until 4:00 at night. We listened to professors each give about a 20 minute presentation of their class, took the written portion of the placement exam, and had some time for lunch. At 7:00 we met to go on a tour of the neighborhood La Latina. It's a very popular neighborhood in the center of Madrid. After the tour, we went to a restaurant called La Turkana. All the profits of the restaurant go to a medical surgery project in Turkana, Kenya. The tapas were great and we had some cerveza and sangria and chatted with Adriana and Alejandra and then headed back to our homes at about 11:00.
THURSDAY
Thursday we met in the CIEE office at 9:00 for some presentations about a Moroccan exchange program, and Disfruta Madrid Más, which is a program that gives students discounts on all sorts of things. We left for UC3M at about 11:00 and continued there with hearing presentations by professors, had a break for lunch, and headed back to Madrid at about 6:00. At 7:00, we met to go to the Teleferico, which is basically a cable car that takes you a few miles out of Madrid and back so you have some fantastic views of the entire city. Then we went to el Parque del Oeste (West Park) to check out some of the sites there and have a picnic. It again was perfectly timed at sunset and was a really pretty walk through the park. The picnic was fun too! Then as a group we went out to a couple bars in la plaza de Tirso de Molina and in Lavapiés to have some drinks. We met up with a few friends of one of our group members who are studying at a different university in Madrid and went out to a bar with them as well. Three bars in one night, you're wondering?! Yes. It was a long night. I made it back home at about 4:00 a.m. and was surprised that we were some of the first to be heading home. La vida madrileña......
FRIDAY
We didn't have to come into orientation Friday at all, except that each of us had a 15 minute meeting with Senzeni (the director) to confirm our registration and print out our schedules. I'll be taking one required language class (I placed into the high advanced class), three CEH classes (which are classes with only international students but are taught in Spanish) History of Spain, Spain Today, and Colloquial Spanish, and one direct enrollment course General Linguistics. At 2:30 we met at Plot Point, which is a theatre school owned by one of the host families. We had some food, and did some activities with the people who work there. This is when things got really interesting! I got back to our apartment at about 6:00 and then me and my host mom got ready to go to one of her friend's birthday parties. We left at about 7:45 and their home is a 10 to fifteen minute drive outside of the city. About 30 people were there in total (I would guess) and it was incredible. First we sat (and stood) around a table and had some food, chatted, and drank. I got to meet all of Argentina's friends and talk to them a bit and they all told me a speak great Spanish, which made me VERY happy! Her friend Paloma, whose birthday it was, is a dancer of 13 years or so. She does like ethnic dancing sort of and she's REALLY good so her friends got her a brand new (gorgeous) orange skirt and top for dancing and a little wrap around scarf thing with jewels on it so it jingles when she shakes her hips (which she does a lot). As soon as she opened it everyone was like put it on put it on!! and of course she did. Then the tables got shoved to the side of the little garden so that there was room for dancing! Everyone was dancing for about an hour or so. It was really an incredible experience--a true fiesta Española! At about 11:00, they did a "magic trick" for the kids. Which was the they had four people lay in a square on chairs with their heads in the lap of the other person (hard to explain) and then they took the chairs out. I'll attach a picture, but it was adorable and all the kids were screaming "magia magia magia" which means magic. We got back to Madrid at about 11:30 I think so I met up with the rest of the group who were all at a bar getting ready to leave for a club. We went to a club in La Latina and I ended up catching a cab home earlier than most because I was tired. 
So far today, me and Argentina both slept in til about 11:00 and then had some breakfast. Then we went through the supermarket to pick up a few things and she explained more to me about things like the differences in milk, jam, and olive oil. We also went all around the neighborhood so she could show me the ferreteria, panaderia, farmacia, papeleria, etc. Then we got back at about 4:00 and ate lunch. Now we're just both on our computers and listening to music. I think tonight we're going out with some of the spanish students, Adriana and her friends.
Hopefully this post wasn't too long! I'll try to post a little more frequently from now on :)
¡Un saludo!
Jolene
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