Kategorie: ‘Madrid’
Internship in Madrid
- Political Science Ma.
- Spain, Madrid
- Goethe-Institut Madrid
- 09/2023 – 12/2023
- application process
© Dinah Schmidt
I started learning Spanish during my bachelor’s degree and had long planned to spend some time in Spain. In September 2022 I applied for the three-month internship in the cultural department of the Goethe-Institut Madrid. The online application consisted of my CV, a certificate of study, and a letter of reference from one of my professors/lecturers. In addition, i was required to answer a few questions about my previous experience, my interests, and my ideas. Then, in December, I received my acceptance on time as a Christmas present. Since then, I have been improving my Spanish skills with language courses and looking forward to my stay. In the summer of 2023, as the start of my internship approached, I started to prepare myself more intensively. Among other things, I studied the history of the city and the cultural offerings and scenes. Then it all started in mid-August! I combined the outward journey with a road trip through Belgium, France, and Spain. Over three weeks, we explored the coastal strip from Bordeaux to Llanes and then travelled through the mountains to Madrid. The traffic on Madrid’s motorways is a definite turn-off!!!
- Accommodation and Living Expenses
I knew from other reports that it would be very difficult to find accommodation and that I would have to be careful not to get screwed. As I didn’t have time to travel a few weeks before the start of the internship to look for a flat on the spot (or preferred to spend the time travelling), I used the Spotahome app. This gave me the certainty that the flat definitely existed and the deposit was only transferred to the landlord after I had given feedback that the flat looked as advertised.
© Dinah Schmidt
Of course, this security also came at a cost. In hindsight, I would recommend looking for accommodation locally rather than from Germany – but it was important for me to have a firm commitment for a room before the start of the internship. I lived in a shared flat with four people who were all only in Madrid for a few months to study. The flat was on the edge of a very nice neighbourhood (Salamanca) on a large roundabout – fortunately in the back building. My room was very small but nicely furnished and had a window. The flat only had a small kitchen, was very noisy and all in all was not in very good condition. The rent was 570 euros per month (!!!) which is very high for this property compared to German rents. Especially when you consider the difference in income between Germany and Spain. In the end, the decisive factor for me was that the Goethe-Institut was easy to reach from the flat. It was just under 25 minutes on foot and a quarter of an hour by metro without changing trains. The cost of living was not much lower than in Germany, only bar and restaurant meals were slightly cheaper.
- Everyday life/the internship
The working hours at the institute were Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 18:00. As part of the cultural work, events were regularly scheduled in the evening, which provided a great deal of flexibility in terms of time on site. On the one hand, the internship involved several continuous tasks and,
© Dinah Schmidt
on the other, offered me a wide range of opportunities to get involved in events. One regular task was to fill the Goethe-website-programme with content and revise it. I also provided support in the areas of communication and social media presence. This included creating events, application posts and reminders, but also conducting interviews with various artists/residents. Another very enjoyable and exciting task was looking after the residents and the institute’s guest flats. I had an overview of when an artist was arriving and departing and was able to welcome them. As a result, I got to know many artists (dance, theatre, cinema, sound, painting, …), theorists and researchers from all over the world during my internship. As part of the FLIPAS-project, workshops on a wide range of topics were made possible through the cooperation of several European cultural institutes in Madrid, cultural institutions and social organisations. These workshops took place in social organisations, museums or other institutes and focused on enabling young people in difficult circumstances to take part in cultural projects, establish contact with international artists, get them excited about the topics and create a great group experience together. As part of this project, I was able to take part in almost all the workshops and assist with translating and documenting them. This allowed me to get to know cultural and social centres, visit theatres and museums in Madrid’s city centre and the surrounding area, and network with a wide variety of people involved in cultural work.
- Free time & tips
The weather in Madrid was wonderful. We could sit outside until the beginning/mid-November and even in winter it was light until 6 p.m. and most days were characterised by bright sunshine. People’s rhythms start and end later than in Germany. The attitude to life is more relaxed and people get together longer in the evening and eat later and more extensively. I can definitely recommend the tapas culture. At the institute, six of us shared an office and were able to spend our breaks together and explore the city. We visited the large and smaller museums in Madrid and took the opportunity to visit some theatres and information events on various topics via the institute. The Reina Sofía Museum has a collection of recent Spanish art and exhibits documents from Spain’s history of protest – I was very impressed. I should not forget to mention the beautiful Retiro Park and the very picturesque and culturally interesting
© Dinah Schmidt
neighbourhoods of Lavapiés, Malasaña and La Latina. Madrid never sleeps – In the evenings and at the weekend, I visited some of the countless beautiful bars and clubs. (Favourite bar here: La Venencia – a quaint pub with an interior from the last century, where the Republicans met during the Civil War, with good sherry and delicious tapas) On the long weekends, I went on a trip to Valencia with friends, hiked the mountain regions around Madrid (Navacerrada was very nice), visited the nearby city of Toledo and the historical memorial site “Valle de Cuelgamuros” (also highly recommended). I really liked the Tío Pío Park in the Vallecas neighbourhood for its beautiful views over the city and, of course, the views from the various rooftop bars.
- Conclusion
To summarise, I can definitely recommend an experience abroad in Madrid and an internship in the cultural department at the Goethe-Institut Madrid. I really enjoyed it and the tasks I was given enabled me to surpass myself and make lots of contacts in Madrid and Spain. This experience abroad has also made me want to take on more projects abroad in the future, especially in Spanish-speaking countries. Finally, I have grown very fond of the people I met in Madrid, and I look forward to maintaining these contacts.
Wonderful Erasmus stay in Madrid
- Chemistry M.Sc.
- Spain, Madrid
- Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC/INTA)
- 09/2023 – 12/2023
Application/Finding an internship
I wanted to go for astrochemistry. That’s the one thing I had in mind when going through all sorts of research institutes in Europe which promised somewhat better weather than Germany. Then, a warm autumn night in Spain must be the perfect addition for stargazing. Eventually, I wrote an email to the Center for Astrobiology (CAB) in Madrid, where I reached out to the Head of the Interstellar and Circumstellar Medium Group. He happily accepted my application and offered me to stay for a research internship in his group. The CAB is a subdivision of the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial INTA, a state institution. There, lots of paperwork and filings were required, but eventually, my stay was official and my badge was ready. Now let’s go, from Aachen to Madrid.
Accommodation & Living Expenses
The campus of INTA and CAB, positioned in the far outer circles of Madrid, and more close to the smaller towns of Alcala de Henares and Torrejón de Ardoz, made me take a 45-minute bus ride from Madrid every morning. I could have chosen to live in the smaller towns. but would I want to miss, living in the centre of one of the biggest metropoles of Europe? Definitely not! I got myself a flat via the local agency viveyestudia.com, which focuses on accommodations for international students. I had a good correspondence with their agent and got a good comparable price(485€ per month). I went to live with 3 other students from all over the world and immediately made good friends with them.
Madrid itself is huge. I may repeat this, Madrid is huge. Even if the Madrid Metro system is one of the best I personally know, it is still good to live in a well-accessible area. My flat was close to Plaza de Manuel Becerra, a crossing of two highly important Metro lines (2 and 6) and a lively but not hectic area. Perfect to reach everything and still not drowning in the noise of the city. Additionally, the metro is wonderfully cheap and extremely powerful to get everywhere, even far outside of the city with no further expenses (Toledo, El Escorial or the Sierra de Guadarrama) Get yourself a Personal card (TTP) as early as possible and pay 8€ or 20€ per 30 days to get pretty much everything!
To taste some of the best local Spanish culinaries I often went out to pay the extra money but never felt overwhelmed by any prices for food or drinks. Especially for buying groceries and cooking in our own kitchen seemed wonderfully inexpensive (at least in comparison to Germany)
The general culture in Madrid is perhaps the best aspect regarding money and expenses, as most museums, palaces, or other cultural sites are either free or highly subsidized.
Everyday life/ the internship
The Glass Palace
© Timon Francis Kielgas
Every morning, during weekdays, there was exactly one bus to get me to CAB. 7:15 in the morning gloom, was when I hoped on to snooze for another bit until I started my day in my Lab at 8. My days either consist of planning or analyzing data from experiments or emptying cups of coffee while letting a simple question about space evolve into a one-hour discussion remotely tangential to my research. Then, perhaps my biggest personal cultural shock, we had lunchtime at 2 p.m., way too late in my opinion, but that’s the Spanish way I was told.
On days when I was absent from the CAB, the weekend and luckily lots of Spanish holidays late in the year, I was adamant, that it is impossible to see everything in Madrid in just three months. After three months this still held true. I spend days on end wandering through Retiro Park, the Prado Museum or the endless bars and tapas places of Malasaña, always finding something new.
Free time/tips
One of the most important things, and as said before, get a Personal card (TTP) for the Metro, as early as possible, because it is that damn good to get around with. To get a great first impression of Madrid I highly recommend the Faro de Moncloa, a tower with a breathtaking observation deck, from which all the important sites of Madrid and its surroundings are visible. Another thing is the Gran Via, which itself is no secret tip because it is THE tourist hotspot. But you have to look up the dates of some special occasion when the Gran Via is closed down for cars to have pedestrians walk all over the place. It’s a wonderful way to observe the vibrant road in a completely different way.
While walking the streets of the Spanish capital, at no point you will go sparse on Spanish European culture. Especially then you have to keep in mind that Madrid is also strongly connected to all the other countries in the Spanish-speaking world of Latin America. If, like me, who has not been to South America before, Madrid is a wonderful place to dive into these cultures as well. Order some Pisco Sour in a Peruvian bar, get a plate of the best Columbian dishes to fill you up or try all the empanadas you can find.
Conclusion
Madrid is a beautiful city, with beautiful weather and wonderful research and researchers. Perhaps my most ambiguous but most remarkable impression was, that everyone I met was super friendly and a joy to be with. While the culture is bright and interesting and the city life is vibrant and beautiful, it was the people I got to work and live with, who made this whole stay the best. I can not tell if it is the field of Astrosciences, if it is the attitude or the people there in Spain, or if it is just pure coincidence, but doing research in this group at CAB just felt good!
I hope others will come to Madrid, have a wonderful Erasmus stay, and share my experience.
A great experience in Madrid
- Architecture M.A.
- Spain, Madrid
- b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos
- May – October 2022
Living and working six months in the vibrant city of Madrid was a lot of fun for me. I did my obligatory internship in a rather small architecture studio in the northern central part of the city – close to the Bernabeu stadium. I shared a flat with two people in Hortaleza, which is in the north-east between the inner and outer ring, therefore a little bit far from the lively city centre. But it was within a good distance for the everyday commute and for an affordable price. One very important thing to know about living in Madrid is that the public transport system is working really well and if you live close to a metro or cercania station you can move very quickly within the city. If you are under 26 the monthly ticket is more than affordable.
My colleagues at the architecture studio were nice and welcoming. They offered me to speak in English but I asked them to only talk in Spanish with me as I wished to learn as much Spanish as possible during my stay. Even though I did not understand everything on my first days, it did not take long to get used to listening and speaking Spanish all day long. This way I learned a lot and could integrate well in the team. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend a good level of Spanish if you would like to do your internship in Spain.
I have spent the summer term in Madrid to enjoy the nice and hot climate. If I could choose again, I would probably prefer to do an internship of six month in the winter term for two reasons. First, in July and August, it got very hot. Maybe this year has been extreme, but we had a couple of weeks with temperatures above 35 degrees – up to 41 degrees on peak days. Even though every office is supposed to have air conditioning, mine did not because it was broken. As it took until the end of August until someone could fix it, we had to sweat quite a bit. Second, if your office does not make an obligated summer break you are probably to stay while everyone else is leaving Madrid for three or four weeks of vacation. And as people are taking turns, you can find yourself with only very few other co-workers in the office. When everyone came back from vacation, the social life outside the office started to pic up. Not only among the colleagues but also in the whole city. A lot of events happen in autumn in Madrid. So, when the time came that I had to leave, I really did not want to.
Madrid’s social life is inexhaustible. There are always things to do and always events happening. It is almost impossible to find a moment when the streets are empty. Concerning parties, it is probably impossible not to find a bar or club where you can listen to the music you like. You can find all kinds of parties in town. (Even though there is a lot of reggaeton, which was in my favour.) I enjoyed most going out in Cuenca and Malasaña – day and night. Also, even though the river of the city is rather small, Madrid has a lot of parks. I loved spending time at the Retiro Parque and Casa de Campo. But because I lived rather far away from these central parks I often went for a run to Parque Felipe VI. Probably no location where you would go to if you do not live close by, but I liked running there a lot because I had a view of Madrid’s Skyline as well as the mountains in the north of the city. If you search for a nice sunset location, I would not recommend Templo de Debot because it is always too crowded, but rather go to the Lookout at Tío Pío’s Hill.
Madrid is Europe’s highest capital city with about 600m above sea level. I noticed this the most due to the high temperature ranges between day and night. Therefore, it is always recommended to bring at least a light jacket. If you do not need it in the morning, maybe you will need it inside if the air conditioning is too cold.
The last thing that I would like to mention about Madrid is that I appreciated its geographic location within Spain a lot. It is very comfortable to travel from and to Madrid. The distances to all points of interest in all directions are more or less equal. If you book your AVE (the fastest trains in Spain) in advance, it is affordable and allows you to go – sometimes even non-stop – to either Sevilla or Barcelona within two hours. The bus takes about five to six hours depending on traffic conditions.
To put it in a nutshell, I can highly recommend Madrid (and for architects also my studio b720) as Erasmus+ location. I enjoyed the six month there a lot and I hope that I can go back soon. The people I met were wonderful and the food I ate delicious. I have learned a lot in language, professional and intercultural terms.
Living in Madrid
- Data Science M.Sc.
- Spain, Madrid
- March 2022 – June 2022
My experiences:
Spending some time in Spain as always been on my mind, so I was really happy to finally realize it. I spent about four months in Spain and in the following I will share my experiences about living in Madrid, finding and organizing an internship and my overall personal experience.
I lived in Chueca, which (together with neighboring Malasaña) is a major destination for gastronomy and night life. On the one hand, it is great because it has a lot going on and represents diversity and LGBTIQ-friendliness. It has a central location both for walking to many parts of central Madrid as well as convenient public transport connections. On the other hand, it is expensive and did not really have a neighborhood-like feeling because it is very crowded and to my impression is really anonymous. It offers many fancy restaurants and shopping opportunities, which did not correspond too much to my preferred price segment and atmosphere though.
My favorite neighborhood is Lavapiés which is more multicultural and offers more affordable options for going out. However, accommodation there is also scarce and my recommendation for a flat would be to also consider other areas which are well connected with public transport and which have their own local atmosphere without an abundance of tourists.
As activities, I can recommend hiking and climbing in the nearby mountains. The villages of Cercedilla, El Escorial and Manzanares El Real can be reached with public transport and offer great hiking. For climbing, I was lucky to join a group of climbers of the alpine club of the Autonomous University and could profit from the good atmosphere and the carpooling within that group.
Apart from the outdoor activities and all the museums and interesting places inside Madrid, I also want to recommend doing day trips by train to the cities Toledo, Segovía and Ávila.
Finding and organizing the internship was not so easy because the planning horizons of the companies that I talked to were not clear. For example, I found a company which would have employed me, but in the end there was a shortage of projects in my desired time period. In general, the insecurity due to the pandemic situation made many companies reduce their internship activities. Moreover, I wanted to avoid a pure home office position, which ruled out some start-ups/IT-companies which do not even have office spaces anymore.
Apart from using job platforms, I eventually found my company by browsing through Madrid’s universities, their spin-offs and cooperating research and development institutes. In particular, these are more used to employ interns because in many study programs in Spain there are obligatory internships which seem to have additional funding.
However, in my case, I was the first person to come from abroad and that is why the amount of questions, uncertainties and organizational issues was relatively high. Neither to me nor to my contact person at the institution was clear at the beginning whether I would need to get a NIE (foreigner identification number) or a social security number. As my host institution could pay me a small salary, I eventually tried to obtain a NIE. This turned out very difficult because there were no appointments available at the foreign affairs office and police in Madrid. For several weeks, I checked the corresponding web page daily and could not get an appointment. Even though, I felt to have understood the system (that new appointments are entered into the system on Mondays around 12PM, still the demand by other and technical obstacles where high). In the end, I decided to travel more than 100km to the neighboring province of Ávila (as mentioned above it is a pleasant day out though) and managed to get an appointment and my document there. From then on, the procedures went relatively smoothly (apart from smaller struggles setting up a bank account).
The work itself started smoothly and I felt well-prepared from my studies and previous work experiences. The team met on two days per week in the office, the remaining days I mostly worked from my room.
I worked on data analyses and machine learning model improvements that the team had always had in mind, but could not find the time themselves for. Therefore, my work was on the one hand useful and providing insights to the time, but on the other hand always a bit separated from what the colleagues were doing. Moreover, my actual supervisor was very busy and partly away, so I was somehow not sure who to ask certain things and who decides the next steps, but I recommend to just not hesitate and ask in the group chat etc.
A peculiarity for me was that some colleagues did not have breakfast at home and that the culture of long coffee breaks (including breakfast) is imported. My colleagues worked rather long hours, but still did not let them stress too much and I appreciated to have a good and social atmosphere.
My overall experience was positive, however, it was more difficult than expected to get socially involved. This is the disadvantage of a big city and that people in my case are having their routines and private lives. In my case, sports and university associations were the solutions to get to know people. In total, I leave Madrid with some positive memories and rich in experiences, however looking forward to environments with more close people and friends.