La Vida Madrileña (from an Erasmus point of view)

A unique insight into life in Madrid from the perspective a 21 year old Law Student from Newcastle-under-Lyme undertaking an Erasmus year at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

[calmckenna]

My first ever ski trip, Sierra Nevada in Andalucia. I say skiing but I opted for snowboarding because I thought I'd look cooler using gravity to propel me down a mountain on what is essentially a really heavy ironing board. All in all a great weekend capped off wonderfully with a stop at the champagne bar halfway down the mountain with Laura and Me Jonathan Garside. Hopefully the first of many

[calmckenna]

The Sound of Music

I would not call myself a musical whizz, when it comes to making it I would place myself in the Jedward bracket of talent. A less than tuneful voice with a lot of over zealous dance moves and tomfoolery. The same applies to musical instruments. I discovered early in life that I lack the patience and outright ability to play a musical instrument. I can’t even hack playing the guitar on my new GarageBand app for goodness sake and that does all the hard work for you! However I regard myself as an exceptional listener. My music tastes are rather unexceptional and border on mainstream but I find that less people are offended by my tastes than my efforts. Madrid has an extraordinary music scene that we (gf included) have been exploring. Now to fill you in on segments

1. Palacio de los Deportes This was the scene of our first Madrid gig, not exactly a small affair either as I, LN and 18,000 madrileños packed our way inside to see the Arctic Monkeys perform on their AM tour. First things first, the support act, The Strypes. Their blues/rock routine wasn’t immensely popular with the locals however I found them thoroughly entertaining. A set list packed with Rhythm & Blues guitar and squealing harmonicas left me feeling more than adequately prepared for the main event. If only there wasn’t a massive gap to fill with mindless chatter…

During the half an hour break the crowd near the front of the stage swelled somewhat all clamouring to get the best view in the house. The lights went down and out walked the band, a roar ascended from the crowd followed by what can only be described as 5 seconds of raw silence before the opening chords of Do I Wanna Know? were belted out. Throughout, a slightly inebriated, Alex Turner entertained the crowd with self-inspired dance moves, frequent dedication to the female contingent and pocas frases españolas. Before we knew it the final song, R U Mine? was upon us. This gig really was one of those blink and you’ll miss it affairs, ram-packed with outstanding showmanship, all out guitar attacks and quite frankly the best vocals I have ever heard from someone so drunk. As the lights went up to signal the end, I was not alone in wishing for another opportunity to revisit the experience but alas my fellow aficionados and I were left to serenade each other to the metro and await the next opportunity to catch possibly the best English band of our generation.

[calmckenna]

Some general advice pt.1

First post of the new year and it seems apt to start thing off with a bit of advice. You have to take this post with a pinch of salt because I am quite a sarcastic person and have been told before that chimpanzees give better advice than me. Personally I find this claim ludicrous unless you want advice on hanging out of trees, pulling funny faces or peeling bananas (I took some advice from an orangutan on this one, the trick is to peel it upside down, that way you never mush the top of your banana). Alas I digress, this advice will maybe be useful to someone in the same situation as myself, and possibly to other Erasmus students in general. 1. Learn the local language - this point seems so obvious but I mean you need to properly understand it, not just some wishy washy A level bullshit about global warming. Learn how to communicate with people, listen to Spanish people talking so you understand the accent. I didn't do this and it took me until mid-October to be able to achieve anything. This seems like a short period (a month and a half) but I assure it won't feel like it. This advice is particularly important in Madrid because nobody speaks English here. If you speak English to someone they give you a look that makes you feel like a leper (30% disgust, 17% pity and 53% utter contempt). 2. Be open - do things, join teams and societies, meet up with potential friends basically be social. I used to have a tendency to avoid these things but in a city like Madrid you will feel isolated pretty quickly. I did a Spanish course at the start of year where I met my first few friends, it was a great way to practice and when you're at uni you can arrange to meet people for a little bitch and a moan about the Spanish education system. It's nice. Attending Erasmus stuff is about personal choice, they do frequent nights out to clubs here but I personally hate the music (once they had a guy play saxophone to aviici). The best thing about going out in Madrid is that you can never feel ashamed about how you dance. If you think you're bad at dancing wait until you see Europe. I dance a bit like a Napoleon Dynamite-Scarecrow crossover depending on how much alcohol I have consumed. In Spain it's more like a mixture blend of salsa and 90s disco with a touch of Parkinson's 3. Try not to care - it's 1 year of your life, if you're like me it doesn't count towards your final degree classification. Nobody in Spain gives a shit, the lecturers assume you're a moron because you're Spanish, banks are open for about 5 hours a day Monday to Friday, nobody will ever tell you anything unless you ask... The list goes on. Don't get me wrong I do wish to succeed whilst I am here and I would like to pass a few modules but to be honest if a professor wants to fail me because English is synonym for alcoholic in his mind then so be it. I will spend my time learning Spanish and writing blogs for an imagined audience. I apologise for the length of this post and promise the next one will be more eloquent. I probably shouldn't have written it in an emotional state after a hard day. CM

[calmckenna]

El Prado Pt.1

First things first, there won't be any first-hand pictures featured in this post. The reason for this is that you aren't allowed to take photos in Museo del Prado.

I did try to explain to the security guards my desire to show off to all of my friends but a stern frown and blank stare were all that greeted my attempts to reason.

I have titled this 'part 1' because in the Prado there are roughly 7000 paintings and to view all 7000 in one 2 hour session I felt would lead to a Mo Farahesque lap of the building and a substantial lack of appreciation of the beauty inherent in the art collection. Also being an Erasmus student I can go for free whenever I feel like it so I will probably go again.

First we (the wench and I) viewed the special exhibition which changes almost monthly. This month the theme was Captive Beauty by the grand masters of traditional Spanish art (Goya, Velazquez, Fortuny et al.). The "captive beauty" of some of these pieces was somewhat questionable however, for example the dead chicken hanging by its foot seemed a touch barbaric yet there were some more aesthetic scenes too.

This painting in particular spoke out to me. It reminds me of a holiday I once spent in the south of France.

After this we viewed a more long-term 'special' exhibition of Japanese prints. These were far more modern and colourful and appealed to my oriental persuasions.

Here we see two Japanese ladies having a conversation. I don't know what they were talking about but I like to think it has something to do with the food fight that resulted in them getting chopsticks stuck in their hair.

Alas this is all we had time for during our short stay however I plan to visit again. There is a natural history exhibition soon, also I want to see the famous Hieronymus Bosch painting The Garden of Earthly Delights.

I assure you part 2 will be more, if not equally insightful into the various artwork on display in the Prado.

[calmckenna]

6 October - Toledo

Visited Toledo with Laura (LN or some derogatory term for woman henceforth) today. Where on earth is Toledo and what's there? I hear you ask. Well it's a walled medieval city about 30 minutes South-West of Madrid and the capital of its namesake province.

More to the point what's there?

A very big beautiful cathedral. From the outside it kind of melts into the surroundings of the city, as all of the city's architecture is similarly Gothic (I hope that's right). However inside it really is something else, with intricate carvings of Jesús Cristo and the heavens. Quite the spectacle.

The Cathedral from the outside

And some of the decoration on the inside. I do wonder what Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen would make of such interior design. Bit gaudy for me.

Also there are a great array of views in Toledo, being a walled city on the top of a hill you would probably expect this of course.

Finally I would like to remark about the myriad of colourful and tasteless tourist shite there is in Toledo. The people of the city seem to have abandoned the idea of eco-tourism and completely filled their shops with garbage, exposing what remains of the city's traditional industries.

(You'd be surprised at how many "one true rings" from the Lord of the Rings you can buy there. I looked it up because I was intrigued to know whether one of the city's renowned blacksmith's had made the ring. Turns out it was made in New Zealand)

All in all I'd give Toledo a must-visit... ...when you have time to.

[calmckenna]

September - The big move

I am fully aware this post is approximately 3 and a half months late but I find that one mustn't rush into writing a travelling blog. After all, it is important to maintain a certain level of panache when it comes to writing about yourself. Also as we have been in Spain since the start of September and have only just gotten round to getting an internet connection in our flat. Suffice to say, this made it quite difficult to produce an online biography of life in Madrid.

So anyway I am going to try to briefly summarise September and October before doing this properly.

The start of the month was a little hectic, what with trying to fit a years worth of stuff into 22kg of luggage, trying to re-learn the tremendously useful A Level Spanish knowledge I had acquired, and trying to find a flat, in a decent area, that was affordable and bigger than a closet

I should say that we didn't take any of these flats, in fact I'm pretty sure we viewed about 3 of them and hated them all. 2 months well spent!

Here we are at the airport all excited to begin our greatest adventure to date - a year in a foreign capital.

I said this would brief and so to summarise the first 3 weeks of September were spent finding a flat, learning Spanish and finding work.

There were a few excursions worth talking about but I think it will be better to dedicate more than 5 minutes of my life to them in their own separate posts. Now I am only 2 months behind the present day, which pretty much puts me in line with the rest of Spain.

More to come...

[calmckenna]

Intro to the blog

Essentially I am going to be writing about my Erasmus year in the most cosmopolitan city of Madrid.

I have two reasons for starting a blog. One is jealousy that two of my best friends are on their own excursions and have cool blogs. The other is a sense of self-importance so big that I believe everyone must want to know about my year abroad.

Content-wise there’s going to be pictures, brief advice, experiences, rambling and some very questionable humour.

I don’t want to shove this down people’s throats either so it’s best to view it like one of those personal development modules almost everyone has studied. No need to attend and usually of little importance or interest.

I will try and keep this thing as up to date as possible but as things stand I have no internet in my flat so there could be long times between posts.

To my readers welcome, to everyone else, buenos días.