My Home & Night-Life

Location: Madrid


HOMESTAY
At the request from several people, I finally got some pictures of my homestay lifestyle. I'm currently living with a Spanish family (a widowed mother, her son, and his wife). The mom runs the show and doesn't speak a word of English, but she often takes on guests for weeks or months at a time. The economy is going through a rough patch here as well so I assume it's to make a little extra money.

Here we are sitting around the dinner table. The mother (Maria-Jesus) is the one sitting next to me, the younger couple is her son and daughter-in-law, and the older gentleman is one of the many house guests who have come through. Just by luck, he lives less than an hour away from my parents back in the states.
And this is their cat, Fernando Redondo (even the pets have two names here!), who is apparently named after a famous Real Madrid soccer player. He sheds like crazy and loves my room and specifically my closet. I've already given up trying to pick off hairs at work...sometimes it's just easier to go with the flow.

EATING & SLEEPING SCHEDULE
These are the two major aspects of Spanish life I have yet to come to grips with. In an effort to keep up with my coworkers, I have conformed to the following daily schedule: wake up at 6:30am to eat a light breakfast (toast or just a coffee), work from 8 until 11am when we take a 30 minute break for a small sandwich or coffee, then going for a large lunch at 3-4 pm lasting about an hour, then eating a large dinner at 10-11pm. I think overall it turns out to be about the same quantity of food, but clearly my body isn't "digging it" because I always feel like I'm eating at the wrong time. And the killer is eating dinner and then going straight to bed; I'm not a doctor, but that can't be healthy.

For sleeping, I'm averaging about 6 hours a night. This does not bode well when the weekend roles around, and read on to find out why.

NIGHTLIFE
Europeans in general really take partying seriously, but the Spanish love to brag about their nightlife. The people don't necessarily drink a lot, but they all stay out until ridiculous hours. Many streets hit their daily peak traffic for at 3am! Many clubs are completely empty until 1am but will stay packed until 6.

Just to give you a feel, these are some pictures I took walking around on a Friday night. This one was taken around 3am.
And this one about two hours after that...the cars in this picture are bumper to bumper and not moving.
I've even heard of people staying out so late on Thursday night that they head straight to work on Friday. I read that Spain has the lowest productivity per worker hour in the entire Western EU, and now I understand why!

Not a Bad First Day of Work...

Location: Maranchon Wind Farm, about 90 minutes NorthEast of Madrid















Just by dumb luck, my first day of work consisted of my department going on a field trip. So we all reported to the office early, piled into a small van (my department is very small, only 12 people) and drove out of Madrid up North for about an hour and a half.

Our destination was the Maranchon Wind Farm, which is owned and operated by Iberdrola. It also happens to be the largest operating wind farm in Europe at 208 MW. That means it can power roughly 200,000 homes when operating at full capacity (which is quite uncommon for wind energy because it doesn't always blow).

The long ride let the other new intern and myself meet everyone in a relaxed atmosphere, which was great for the first day. We were all very laid back and in good spirits.

This is the view as we were driving up.
There are 104 identical turbines, each one rated at 2 MW (104 * 2 = 208 MW). These may not look very big from far away, but I couldn't help but feel a sense of wonder when I stood under one. Here's a cool picture of the experience.
And I was shocked how quiet they were, although they weren't running anywhere near full speed because it wasn't a very windy day. Still, check out the impressive video below to get a sense of scale.

I'm sure you're wondering, so the answer is they are each more than 100 meters (330 feet) tall. Each blade is a little under 45 meters (150 feet) long. Here's a really good picture to put this into scale. The turbine in the middle has 3 people doing some maintenance directly to the right of the blade, below the gearbox. If you look really hard you can see them - how's that for big!
And another pic of me with the turbines.
As if the day couldn't get any more cool, we stopped for a very nice lunch at an old castle now converted into a hotel. It was a five course ordeal, complete with many bottles of wine and post dinner coffee and sherry.
Perhaps calling this my first day of work is a misnomer, since it implies I actually did something!

Click here for additional pictures.

GOAL!!!!

Location: Madrid

















Perhaps it's fitting that my first real post in Madrid is about Fútbol - also known as Soccer in the states. But here it's not just a sport, it's a way of life. Similar to the book and movie "Friday Night Lights" which describes a small Texas town where high school football is everything, Spain lives and breathes through it's Fútbol teams. And although Spain has many leagues and teams, the most famous club is "Real Madrid".

Founded in 1902, this club has won a record 9 European Cup, 17 Copa del Rey and 31 La Liga titles. I don't have any idea what those second two even mean but they sound impressive. That's probably why FIFA voted them as the most successful football team of the 20th century. This team is so good that although David Beckham recently played here for several years, the locals tend to agree he didn't have much to contribute. Below is the teams logo, which I've often seen on tee-shirts, bumper stickers, etc walking around Madrid.

Conveniently, the team plays out of Santiago Bernabéu Stadium located in downtown Madrid. I was fortunate to recently catch a tour of the stadium, which I found fascinating.

This is what the outside looks like.
Although I didn't take this next one, this is the view at a full capacity (80,000 people) night...This place has some trophy rooms the likes of which I've never seen or heard about. This particular shot was a very "select" room, containing rows and rows of trophies which signified only "the most paramount" of victories throughout the years. I really had the feeling that a die-hard fan would know the story behind every single trophy.
Continuing on, there are more huge rooms with cases like these.
And then there are even more rooms with weird ones shaped like objects. Many were obvious ones like golden soccer cleats and soccer balls, but some were a bit more interesting like the one below.
To all those reading this, I have no clue as to why anyone would be bestowed a sports trophy which looks like a house, but feel free to enlighten me.

And this particular beauty they had apparently won only 6 days before...
And of course here's one within the stadium. We also got to walk down next to the field (with strict instructions not to touch the grass). I haven't been in too many other stadiums, but this one felt like it had particularly steep seating.
Hopefully I get to take another one during a game sometime!

Click here to see additional pictures.

Settled Safely in España

Location: Madrid















My apologies for the long delay in this post, but after a long and hectic week I am finally feeling settled into Madrid. I will be living and working here for 6 months (and possibly longer if my company likes me).

I was accepted through an intern program with the "Fundación Consejo España – Estados Unidos" which comprises of 17 Americans this year, although we come from different universities and work for different companies. The objective of the intern program is as follows:

"To offer U.S. citizens, recently graduated from the United States' best universities (BS, BA, MBA, PHD), the possibility of having an experience in a Spanish company in order to provide in-depth knowledge of their companies while at the same time offering the opportunity to learn about Spanish businesses, society, culture and language."

Pretty neat stuff. We had an orientation week together of classes aimed at giving us a crash-course of the country's history, economy, culture, art, food, and everything else imaginable. It was very informative and helpful, although it was taught completely in Spanish. I quickly discovered that my language skills were not as sharp as I thought, but I have found it a strong motivator to study more.

Hotel
During my orientation week, I was staying in a hotel provided by my company near the center of the city. Nice place, but I did encounter one funny story when I first arrived. I found that after I got into my room, none of the lights worked. I strongly suspected that I was doing something wrong, but sure enough not a single light would come on in the bathroom or bedroom. After a few minutes of cursing and anger (I had just crossed the Atlantic on a red-eye and was running on about 3 hours of sleep), I called down to the front desk, where I received instructions on how to operate my room.

I had already notice this little box near the front door, but couldn't figure out what to do with it.
The nice lady instructed me to insert my key and everything would work fine, which it did. I think she has received numerous inquiries from Americans in the past.
They apparently have this system for energy efficiency reasons, so everything shuts down when one leaves the room. Pretty clever I thought.

Hostel
Although the orientation classes were during the day of the first week, we were expected to search for an apartment during the nights. Unfortunately the week ended with me still not having a place to live, so rather than extending my stay in the hotel (I felt it was too expensive) I decided to move into a hostel. This was a bigger headache than I anticipated because most places only had openings for a couple of days, and I was unsure how long I needed to stay. I booked a place for 3 nights thinking there was no way I couldn't have found an apartment by then. This is what my room looked like.
You have probably noticed the 3 beds and are wondering about my roommates. I was a little worried about my belongings (most notably my laptop), so I booked all 3 for myself. This turns out to be somewhat common among hostel-goers with a lot of stuff. All together, it cost about 40 euros per night, which was still much less than what the hotel would have cost me. My parents have pointed out that perhaps I was a little too cheap, but oh well.

Apartment
Luckily for me an opportunity presented itself on my last day in the hostel, which also happened to be the day before I started work. After much thought, I decided to go with a "homestay" option, which means I integrate and live with a family who cooks & cleans. The family consists of a mother (Maria Jesus), her son (Alejandro), and his wife (Theresa). The couple speaks English quite well (Theresa is a Caucasian born and raised in San Francisco), and Alejandro has also been studying it for quite awhile as well. Maria Jesus speaks only Spanish. The couple is moving to California in a few weeks, so I am feeling a little extra pressure to work on my language skills before they leave.

Although this option is more expensive than just an apartment, I thought the extra exposure to the culture, food, and ability to practice Spanish was worth the money. I'm currently planning on living here for 3 months, but I also have the option to leave early or extend later should if absolutely necessary.

Madrid
Here's a little bit of general info on Madrid, the nation's capital. It is home to roughly 3.5 million within the city, along with an additional 1.5 million in the "greater area". It is located almost precisely in the middle of the country (see map at the top), with Barcelona about a 4-5 hour drive away on the East Coast.

One aspect which confused me greatly was the complete lack of street signs. It took me awhile to realize there are signs - just not where I'm used to. Here's a picture of a typical intersection...notice no street signs anywhere.
But since every street has a tall building on the corner, tiny signs can be found posted alongside them. See example below.
This works fine for pedestrians, but I have no idea how drivers get around on this system. I suppose it says something that every single taxi I've seen has been equipped with a GPS system.

Where I live
Fortunately the metro system here is really good, although it seems overwhelming at first. It's very extensive and has been expanding rapidly. Below is a map which is now old and outdated - many of the lines are now much longer.
I live close to the bottom where the light blue and gray lines intersect. This puts me in the southern part of the city, and unfortunately my work office is quite far North. This makes for about a 50 minute commute each way. Not exactly my ideal situation, but again the trade-off was for living with a local family. I initially tried to find such an arrangement closer to work but was unsuccessful. Most of the other Americans in the program ended up budging a lot on their preferences as well (cost, location, roommates), but overall I'm pretty happy with my situation.

As One Chapter Ends, Another Begins

This will officially be my last post for my adventures in Iceland, and I thought it appropriate to share a few quick notes now that it's all done.

Overall it was a fantastic experience which I would recommend to anyone. Although I've been told by many that I was very lucky with the summer weather (the best most can remember), I don't think more rain could have dampened my experience. And while the summer boasts 24 hour sunlight around the equinox in late June, keep in mind the exact opposite happens in late December. Definitely take this factor into account before booking flights.

One aspect that I found surprising is how easy it was for an American to blend in. I guess I was expecting a greater difference from the norm, but the Icelanders are so similar in appearance (to Caucasians at least), language (it's rare to find anyone not fluent in English), and even things like food (McDonalds, Burger Kings, Subways, KFCs, and Taco Bells can be found in most places). Of course they have certainly retained some unique dishes (see shark, puffin, and reindeer related posts).

On average, the locals really like Americans. They watch our television shows, movies, and emulate our culture to such an extent that many mainland Europeans refer to them as "Little America".

Both nations also share similar consumption habits. Two good-sized shopping malls are located in Reykjavik, along with around half a dozen movie theatres. All this for a city with around 250,000 people. And then there's the shopping stores that stretch the entirity of Laugavegur street, the main drag through downtown. One even sees numerous SUVs moving around, which is a trait much more common with its Western neighbors than mainland Europe.

While most people speak Icelandic to each other, I rarely had an unpleasant experience with the locals conversing with me in English. I imagine this to be pretty much the exact opposite of an American walking through Paris armed only with English. And they were always helpful in giving directions or gracefully accepting our strange behaviors and questions.

And it would be unrepresentative of Reykjavik if I didn't at least mention its nightlife. With at least a dozen bars & clubs within walking distance of eachother in downtown and the weekend scene rarely ending before 6am, the Icelandic people set the bar high for anyone aspiring to be a serious party-goer.

By far my favorite experience of the trip was taking in all the natural beauty. While I would hardly consider myself an expert traveler, I truly believe Iceland to be the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Waterfalls, volcanoes, hot springs, glaciers, fjords, craters, lava caves, and even malls shaped like a penis...this place has something for everyone. It was difficult to visit anywhere outside the capital without having a sense of awe.

And while I am sad to go, I am eagerly awaiting my upcoming 6 months in Madrid (and the blog of course will continue). Thank you all for sharing this experience with me. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I did in its writing.