One Year In Madrid

I have now finished school (Thursday 14th) and have moved into my new apartment which I did on Saturday morning with the help of my friend Susana who is from Germany. The flat is really nice and I love living here. The view from the balcony is incredible. .
I am here alone until my flat mate, Anas, returns from holidays on 3rd September. We have one spare room to let and I want the occupant to be Spanish. Anas doesn't speak any English, which will be great for my Spanish.

Last week my friend Alexia had to return to France earlier than planned because she got bad news about her family, but the good news it that it was not too serious and she will be back next week until 13th September.

I am going to Valencia this weekend with my friend Paula. Her family lives there and I will stay with them. Finally I am going to the beach.

The average day for me consists of waking up at about 10am and taking coffee on the balcony, followed by either watching a bit of Spanish TV or studying. At about 12pm I leave and go to a cafe where I read my book or a magazine. In the afternoon I tend to go to the Gym after which I take a little sleep. In the evenings I will either meet which one of my intercambios (this is where I meet with a Spanish person and we swap languages), go out with friends from school or watch a movie. As you can see its a very stressful life.

I am looking for a job that I hope to start in October. The next 6 weeks I will be visiting friends in other countries. I will visit Cedric and Jacqui in Montpelier in October and my family during the last two weeks of September.

Well it's been a while since I added a post to this blog so this one will be a quick up date on the last couple of months.

I want to start by making a list of all the people I have lived with since the beginning of March. This is going to be a long list.

Alex - France
Jeniffer - Sweden
Maurits - Holland
Antonio - Italy
Ed - London
Rieni - Germany
Another Italian man whose name I forgot
A German man we never really saw
Anouk - Holland
John - Egypt
KiKi - Croatia
Maria - Moscow
Nastia - Moscow
Silvia - Italy
Mati - Italy
Ireana - Croatia
Tressa - Arkansas, US
Kris - Missouri, US
Marcillia - Brazil
Jamila - Slovakia
Alexia - France
Cindy - Holland
Willem - Holland
Cris - Switzerland
2 Polish ladies
One American girl
Another Italian girl
A Chinese gut from New York
Kivo - Turkey
Sandra - Turkey
Inge - Holland
Chiara - Italy

A total 33 people plus 'guests'.

Now I am living in a different location, Gaztambide, a few streets from San Bernardo. I had to move because they are refurbishing the old apartment. I now live with 4 Swedish girls, 2 Italian guys, one American and a Russian girl.

I have 2 more weeks of school and will move one of the school apartment to an apartment in Cuatro Caminos. This apartment is luxury compared to the apartment offered by the school.

Here are some photos of the people I have known.

Cick Here

Well it's been a while since I added a post to this blog so this one will be a quick up date on the last couple of months.

I want to start by making a list of all the people I have lived with since the beginning of March. This is going to be a long list.

Alex - France
Jeniffer - Sweden
Maurits - Holland
Antonio - Italy
Ed - London
Rieni - Germany
Another Italian man whose name I forgot
A German man we never really saw
Anouk - Holland
John - Egypt
KiKi - Croatia
Maria - Moscow
Nastia - Moscow
Silvia - Italy
Mati - Italy
Ireana - Croatia
Tressa - Arkansas, US
Kris - Missouri, US
Marcillia - Brazil
Jamila - Slovakia
Alexia - France
Cindy - Holland
Willem - Holland
Cris - Switzerland
2 Polish ladies
One American girl
Another Italian girl
A Chinese gut from New York
Kivo - Turkey
Sandra - Turkey
Inge - Holland
Chiara - Italy

A total 33 people plus 'guests'.

Now I am living in a different location, Gaztambide, a few streets from San Bernardo. I had to move because they are refurbishing the old apartment. I now live with 4 Swedish girls, 2 Italian guys, one American and a Russian girl.

I have 2 more weeks of school and will move one of the school apartment to an apartment in Cuatro Caminos. This apartment is luxury compared to the apartment offered by the school.

Here are some photos of the people I have known.

Last week I went to the largest park in Madrid with Anouk, Maurits and Cassie (Girl from England), Casa de Campo. It was originally used by the king as a hunting ground for dear. It has a similar history to that of Richmond Park, and is now open to the public. We took a cable car from the Temple of Bod (which was given to Madrid by the King of Egypt for Franco’s help during the war), to the centre of the park. The views of Madrid are amazing. Please see photos.

Since my last post I have seen 11 people come and go from the San Bernado flat. The end of March saw the departure of Alex (France), Antonio (Italy) and Ed (London) and the arrival of Reini (Germany), Tressa (Arkansas, US), Kris (Missouri, US), Maria (Moscow), Nastia (Moscow), Anouk (Holland), Marcillia (Brazil) and Jamila (Slovakia). Reini has returned to Germany while the American girls have gone to Salamanca and Anouk is back to work in Holland. This brings the flat mate count up to 13 and that’s in just 5 weeks. I have 19 weeks to go!!!!!!

El tiempo es lo mejor. Cada día el tiempo ha hecho muy bueno. Normalmente, no hay nubes en el cielo y la temperatura ha hecho más que 15 grados. Principalmente la temperatura ha hecho más que 20 grados. El verano la temperatura aumentaremos a 40 grados. ¡Que calor!

Ayer fuimos a una procesión de semana santa, fueron 4 procesiones en Madrid pero vimos solo uno. Fueron demasiado persones que no vimos nada. A mi me parece que la gente de Madrid sean muy religiosa no es algo exclusivo de Madrid pero todo el país me parece ser religiosa y deseo vea mas de esto. Hoy pienso que haga más cosas culturales con los compañeros del apartamento.

Una chica de Egipto fue llegar al apartamento la semana pasado pero no llego. Alex ha pedido a la escuela ‘¿donde es?’ y dijeron que ha hecho alguien problemas con el visado. No pasa nada, porque tendremos una nueva chica de alemana que viene el domingo.

Ahora, solo chicos viven en el apartamento y deseamos que una chica venga al apartamento, para el mixto más mejor. Sin embargo el apartamento es muy socio y hoy limpiaremos todo. No me gusta limpiar.

I arrived at the school at 8am, Monday, for a level test. I scored high enough to be put in the B1(intermediate) level, the level I was hoping for. We are 8 in the class. 3 from Sweden, 2 from The US, 1 from Greece and 1 from The Netherlands. We are a lively group who are all motived to learn. Our classes are from 3pm to 7pm. However because next week there are 2 public holidays, we will recuperate the lost lessons by having classes from 1pm until 7pm Monday and Wednesday. 6 hrs of Spanish lessons in one day is really hard. But still it should be fun.

The school is small with a tiny area for students and a bank of computers. Which in my experience nearly always break at the most inconvenient time. We have been lucky in our apartment to find an unsecured internet connection that we can use. No need to go to school and get angry at their rubbish computer systems.

In the last two weeks we have covered such a lot of material that it is difficult to remember, but I believe that this is all the verb conjugation that we need for now and will spend the next few week practicing it over and over again.

I really like being a student again. I feel like I am doing something worth while.

I have been in Madrid for two weeks now and the time has flown by so fast that I have only got round to checking my emails. I have a lot to say so will do so in several themed posts. This one is about the apartment and my flat mates.

When I arrived at the apartment on Sunday afternoon Jeniffer (21, Swedish) was fast asleep in her room. Her bedroom door was wide open and i could see that she had the room with a balcony. Later, when the others arrived, this room was to become an extension of the general living area.

I made my way through the apartment inspecting the names on the doors of each room until I found the room with my name on it. I open the door, through my luggage on the floor (21 kgs) and laid on the bed. My room is small and at the back of the apartment with a lovely view on to the back of other peoples appatments. I really wanted the room with the balcony but decied that my room would be the quietest and coolest, especialy as the tempurature increases through the summer.

As each new person arrived we set about discovering from which country we had come from. There is Ed from London, Antiono, 26 from Italy and Alex, 21 from France. Last weekend we were joined by Marits, 19 from The Netherlands and tomorrow we are to be join be a new person who replaces Jennifer. Jennifer is going to finish her studies in Malaga.

The apartment is a very typical student flat. A bit run down but basically livable. It is only 15 mins from school and surrounded by good inexpensive bars.

I think that I will be happy here.