Arrival Day:

Coming from a SHS junior, when I say I was sleep deprived when I arrived to Spain, that’s when you know I was truly exhausted. I knew I was going to be tired because our flight was a redeye, meaning that it left late at night and arrived early in the morning, but what I didn’t know was that the plane was going to have an issue with ‘reading the fuel amount’ and cause us to leave 3 hours later than we expected. In total, I think I slept 4 hours, so the thought of a full day of activities to do when I arrived in Madrid was very unappealing. However, luckily the family I am staying with had planned a pretty chill day for us. After I unpacked my overpacked suitcase and took a power nap, we visited Buen Retiro Park, essentially the Central Park of Madrid. To give you a sense of its size (and how massive Central Park really is) Buen Retiro Park is 350 acres, less than half of Central Park, but don’t get me wrong, it’s still massive. It’s really popular to rollerblade and bike around the park and there is a small lake that you can boat in (just like you can in Central Park). Around Buen Retiro, there are life sized statues that represent past significant kings of Spain. Overall it was a really nice park and, obviously, I took tons of pictures:

Day 1:

After a bus and 3 trains, we made it to the shopping district of Madrid with a few other Spaniards and their fellow exchange-es. There was a plethora of cute, little Spanish shops with loads of nice clothes and great prices (Shoutout to the Euro being strong!). We then went to this department store that had a really cool view of the city at the top. Afterwards we went to lunch at an Italian place in the city. After lots of walking we called it a night to prepare for a full day of school tomorrow!

Stay tuned for more eXChange Chronicles! This is the first of many.

by Emily Brew