We’re all back home now so this is our last blogpost. Therefore, we thought it best to just sum up what we experienced during our semester abroad.
Daniela – WE DID IT!
We can not believe our 6 months exchange is done! Time flies when you are having fun.
In our abroad-time we had the opportunity to get to know a new culture ( very opposite to the german one as known), visit new incredible places and meet new people. Locals were always nice to us and (at least) tried to communicate in English and although some could pass, many of them did not knew how to properly speak English and we had to try our best with the few Spanish we had learnt so far.
Spain is a lovely country to travel around in your free time and we would encourage everybody that wants to have a good time and try a variety of tapas combined with a different kind of beer to come visit! We assure you will not regret this opportunity and you will be welcomed with open arms and smiley faces (and of course a lovely weather).
Irina – Summary about my stay I Madrid
About a months ago our semester abroad and stay in Madrid ended. Some of us were really happy to fly home again, and some of us fell so much in love with Spain, that they decided to stay a few more weeks in Spain and travel around.
To be honest, I were really happy to be back in Germany after 4 and a half months. Many of us loved the Spanish mentality, the cheap tapas and wine, the warm and long evenings and Spanish laid-back attitude, but I had problems to adapt to this. I want to show you to thing, that annoyed me most during my stay, and what I loved most.
What I’ve learned
To be a bit more open-minded. I had problems to accept the Spanish mentality because we Germans are way more narrow-minded, a bit less flexible and try to follow rules. Spaniards love there “mañana”, what means something like “Come again tomorrow, maybe (or maybe not) it will be here tomorrow”. So, it is very important, that you, if you want to live and study in Madrid or Spain, to be a bit more open-minded, flexible and relaxed and adapt the Spanish mindset, otherwise you will be bugged 24/7.
What I’ve love most
The weather. I fell so much in love with the weather in Spain. The sun was shining most of the time. I remember that I was pretty hot at the end of October, so that I wore shorts at Halloween. Even in November and December it was about 16 degrees. We almost never had rain. This gave us the possibility, to travel around and explore whole of Spain with a such beautiful and sunny weather.
Benita – I learned many different things during my time in Madrid.
First of all, the things we studied in class of which some might really be useful for me in the future. One of the classes was Spanish class. I’m certain it was the favourite class of everyone interested in languages. For me, that was definitely the case. During the semester I also managed to get my DELE certificate which I’m happy about and which was made possible by the fact that we only had 5 courses and there was some extra time. So, Spanish skills are something, some of us also developed and which will come quite handy.
Also, speaking of skills, independence and flexibility are skills one develops while abroad (I think this applies for everywhere). Just the fact that we needed to get along in a different country, with a different language and different systems etc. made us more adaptable, and in my case, the Spanish way of handling things made me more relaxed.
Of course, experiencing the country itself is something I wouldn’t want to miss and there are many options for traveling. Valencia, Sevilla, Granada, Toledo, Aranjuez and Alcalá de Henares are places that I visited, but there is still much more to see and to do.
Surely the most important part is the people all of us met. New encounters are always enriching and maybe some of us have found friends for life.
We hope we could give you some impressions and you enjoyed reading our posts!
