{"id":11609,"date":"2017-09-14T16:55:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=11609"},"modified":"2017-09-14T16:55:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T21:55:51","slug":"madrid-madrid-madrid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=11609","title":{"rendered":"Madrid Madrid Madrid!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a1Hola!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I am now about a week and a half into my study abroad experience, and I\u2019m still having such a great time! Now that I\u2019m getting used to my classes, I am starting to think about the real reason why I came here: to travel! Travelling is my passion, and I can&#8217;t wait to plan all the trips I want to take. Even though I can&#8217;t wait to travel, most of my friends and students around me are spending their free time looking at flights trying to find the cheapest one. Like how boring is that? I mean I guess it\u2019s cool when you find a good price because then you get to go on an awesome trip for super cheap! However, it\u2019s still a hassle looking up flights all day. I\u2019m not even kidding, so many of us are constantly on our computers and once in awhile you\u2019ll here \u201comg this flight is 40 euro round trip!\u201d. Then a discussion on if they should just book it now or wait for later. They were making me think that I need to get going on planning my trips, so I decided to book one! My friend and I made the spontaneous decision to go to Mallorca for two days! We\u2019re super excited, and you guys will hear all about it in a couple weeks! However, I can&#8217;t go anywhere else until I know more about the city I am living in for 4 months, so this weekend was all about Madrid! <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11611\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11611\" style=\"width: 154px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11611\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/files\/2017\/09\/IMG_2213-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"154\" height=\"273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2213-169x300.jpg 169w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2213-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2213-152x270.jpg 152w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2213.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 154px) 100vw, 154px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11611\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We&#8217;re always getting coffee somewhere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11610\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11610\" style=\"width: 274px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11610\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/files\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"274\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225-270x270.jpg 270w, https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/IMG_2225.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 274px) 100vw, 274px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11610\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Royal Palace of Madrid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My friends and I explored Madrid as best as we could! We first walked around Sol and then went to Retiro park, which is super beautiful. We rented row boats for 6 euros and got to spend an hour rowing around a lake, which was so fun! We also went on a bus tour and saw the amazing architecture and learned a lot of history. On the tour, we also visited the Royal Palace, which is super beautiful! Like if I could live there I totally would. Anyway, it was such an amazing weekend learning all about where I\u2019m going to be living for the next four months!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At orientation, SLU told us all about how there are different phases of our study abroad experience. First is denial, then we experience culture shock, and then acceptance of our new life here. So basically they told us that we will be so caught up in being here that we will deny that we are homesick or the feeling that we don&#8217;t belong. They said that eventually we will fall into a pit of depression and most likely want to go home. They were so brutally honest that we thought they were joking. Unfortunately, they were not. But don\u2019t worry, I haven\u2019t fallen into my pit of depression yet! Hopefully I won\u2019t but apparently it\u2019s inevitable. So that\u2019s fantastic, but it can actually be beneficial to us because we can then learn more about Spain and everything about it. That\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping at least! So right now I am still in love with Madrid and everything about it! My classes are getting a little difficult, so I\u2019m starting to realize that I\u2019m not on vacation and that I still need to focus on school. My classes are super interesting though, so I\u2019m excited for everything that I\u2019m going to learn! I\u2019ll let you all know if I fall into my pit of depression, but honestly if I do I don\u2019t think it will be bad. I\u2019ve already made so many friends, and I can\u2019t wait for all the trips I\u2019m going to go on! Well, that&#8217;s it for now! \u00a1Hasta luego!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a1Hola! So I am now about a week and a half into my study abroad experience, and I\u2019m still having such a great time! Now that I\u2019m getting used to my classes, I am starting to think about the real reason why I came here: to travel! Travelling is my passion, and I can&#8217;t wait &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/?p=11609\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,55,63],"tags":[369,465],"class_list":["post-11609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jesuit-partners","category-saint-louis-university-madrid-spain","category-spain","tag-madrid","tag-saint-louis-university-madrid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/goglobal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}