{"id":293,"date":"2022-12-05T10:48:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-05T09:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/?p=293"},"modified":"2022-12-05T10:48:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T09:48:12","slug":"a-great-experience-in-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/2022\/12\/05\/a-great-experience-in-madrid\/","title":{"rendered":"A great experience in Madrid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_293 social_share_privacy clearfix 1.6.4 locale-en_US sprite-en_US\"><\/div><div class=\"twoclick-js\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/* <![CDATA[ *\/\njQuery(document).ready(function($){if($('.twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_293')){$('.twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_293').socialSharePrivacy({\"txt_help\":\"Wenn Sie diese Felder durch einen Klick aktivieren, werden Informationen an Facebook, Twitter, Flattr, Xing, t3n, LinkedIn, Pinterest oder Google eventuell ins Ausland \\u00fcbertragen und unter Umst\\u00e4nden auch dort gespeichert. N\\u00e4heres erfahren Sie durch einen Klick auf das <em>i<\\\/em>.\",\"settings_perma\":\"Dauerhaft aktivieren und Daten\\u00fcber-tragung zustimmen:\",\"info_link\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.heise.de\\\/ct\\\/artikel\\\/2-Klicks-fuer-mehr-Datenschutz-1333879.html\",\"uri\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\\\/intern-abroad\\\/2022\\\/12\\\/05\\\/a-great-experience-in-madrid\\\/\",\"post_id\":293,\"post_title_referrer_track\":\"A+great+experience+in+Madrid\",\"display_infobox\":\"on\"});}});\n\/* ]]> *\/<\/script><\/div><ul>\n<li>Architecture M.A.<\/li>\n<li>Spain, Madrid<\/li>\n<li>b720 Ferm\u00edn V\u00e1zquez Arquitectos<\/li>\n<li>May &#8211; October 2022<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n<p>Madrid\u2019s 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 Malasa\u00f1a \u2013 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\u2019s 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 T\u00edo P\u00edo\u2019s Hill.<\/p>\n<p>Madrid is Europe\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 sometimes even non-stop &#8211; to either Sevilla or Barcelona within two hours. The bus takes about five to six hours depending on traffic conditions.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Architecture M.A. Spain, Madrid b720 Ferm\u00edn V\u00e1zquez Arquitectos May &#8211; October 2022 &nbsp; Living and working six months in the vibrant city of Madrid was a lot of fun for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"c2c_always_allow_admin_comments":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,74,73,84,7],"tags":[71,57,56],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-course-of-study","category-host-country","category-madrid","category-spain","tag-architecture","tag-madrid","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rwth-aachen.de\/intern-abroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}