Barajas Airport and Beyond

Welcome friends,

Having never done a blog before, we are both very thankful to simply have this opportunity. If you decide to check in every once in a while, we will be journaling our June 6-July 15 trip through back streets, museums, beaches, and everything in between of Spain, France, and Italy. The main part of this trip consists of a Boston College Summer Study Abroad Program to Madrid, Spain where we will be studying Art History in a city well known for it's artistically diverse heritage. So thanks for coming and we hope you enjoy reading...

June 7, 2009
After connecting flights and a 6 hour cross-atlantic trip, we finally arrived at Barajas Airport in Madrid, Spain at a local time of about 7:30Am. We met our shuttle with a group of BC students. Weaving in and out of thin, crowded, and sketchy one-way streets we arrived at our residencia: Residencia Club Universitario Rosales on Alvarez de Mendizzabal N' 44, '4. The 5 story building located in a tight street between hookah bars and Pepe's bar seemed a strange place for our month-long stay in Madrid. Meeting our landlady,who speaks no english, we attempted to understand dining times and housekeeping policies. She then pushed us into a small elevator that seemed closer to a laundry chute that barely could fit John and I with our backpacks; possibly the strangest elevator we had ever been in. The room on the 4th floor is a small 2 person bedroom with no bathroom but an oddly placed sink and miniature shower, as well as a small balcony. After hours of rebooting and pen-throwing, we finally found a way to get internet. We are on a floor with mostly BC students in either 1 or 2 person bedrooms.

^John working diligently on his first blog in our small spanish room

^Our random, small, yet powerful shower.

And of course the first 30 seconds after arriving Albert decided to lie on the bed only to look on his arm and see a spider crawling. John bravely dispatched the spider and saved the day although he remained a little paranoid the rest of the day that he would find a nest of spiders in the room or even worse on his bed. We unpacked our bags and prepared to leave for our first meeting with the BC program at our learning center.

Our first encounter with the Metro (subway) was interesting. Getting through the gates took more effort than it should have because one our program coordinators did not have the Metro passes for half of the boys in our residencia. After initial difficulties however, everybody decided that the Madrid Metro sets the standard for how all subway systems across the world should be. We have never seen a cleaner or more efficient rail system.

After an initial greeting at our learning center with both programs (about 40 kids and two teachers along with some spring semester students still here), we walked through the "Borbons" (I hope that's right) of Madrid on our way to a paella restaurant. It was a very nice walk that included El Parque and El Prado.

The paella was as delicious as it was bizarre. Dinner began around 9, and the restaurant was deserted not because it was so late but because it was earlier than most Spaniards prefer to eat dinner. Six giant platters of the traditional Spanish dish were brought out to us. The various forms of the classic meal included seafood paella, chicken paella, veggie paella, chicken and veggie paella, fish paella, and "paella negra" labeled so because octopus ink colors the rice black. Although the black paella looked appetizing in no way, John tried it and said it was pretty good but not as good as the seafood paella.

We'll work on posting more pictures of the room and area later, but we've been quite busy.
After a long night of getting to know everyone at a small pub called Dubliners, we walked back to the room since the Madrid metro system closes at 1:30am. The 1:30am end of service is the one negative quality about the otherwise perfect Metro. However, Dubliners was a great time as we got to meet the other students from our trip and watch MLB baseball, soccer, and the beginning of the Lakers game at 2am because of the 9 hour time difference from the west coast. At the pub, we met a group of British rugby players who were in spain for competition, as well as a group of recently graduated BC students looking to celebrate/mourn leaving Chestnut Hill.

June 8:
Thanks to some quick and impressive knowledge of the subway system, Albert guided us to 11am class at Sampere, our learning center. (named after Alberto Sampere) At the center, a map with pins indicated cities and nations where students at the academy had studied. We both were glad to place the first pins for the cities of Cincinnati and Portland on the map. After class and a filling 2-course meal at our residence's kitchen, we settled in for a nice siesta...