In the capital city

Welcome to my blog! This is my first time making one so hopefully I’ll be good at updating it on a regular basis, although no guarantees! I decided to create it so that I can stay in touch with friends and family back in the States while I am living and traveling around Europe for the next 9 months!

Although most people already know, I am going to be living and working in Madrid, Spain during the upcoming school year (school starts a little later here). My three friends and I were accepted into a program to become teaching assistants at elementary schools in the Madrid area. It’s sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Education, so we receive a monthly stipend and a work visa (something hard to come by as an American).

My friend Jessica and I arrived in Madrid yesterday. I had a nice flight from Philadelphia and my Spanish friend from UNC, Elena, and her mom picked me up from the airport which was so sweet of them and such a life saver. They took me to my hostel which is located right in the Times Square of Madrid, the Puerta del Sol. Unfortunately there is construction everywhere which Elena’s mom explained was due to la crisis as they call it here, and Spain’s high unemployment. Basically they’re starting tons of projects to create more jobs. Since all the construction made it impossible to drive up to my hostel, Elena and her mom helped me drag my HUGE suitcases from a parking deck and since I couldn’t check in immediately, we went to grab a breakfast of sorts called churros con chocolate which are like fried doughnuts dipped in chocolate. It was great seeing Elena again and getting to meet her mom who was so sweet and made me feel right at home in Madrid.

After a three hour nap, Jessica arrived. She had a long trip over but didn’t seem too tired so we went to go buy our cell phones which is a must when apartment hunting. We quickly found out we needed a passport to buy the phone (I don’t know why because we bought a prepaid phone) so we went back to the hostel to get ours and by the time we got back to the store it was closed so we went out for a tapas dinner instead.

Today basically consisted of calling and seeing apartments. This has been by far the most humbling experience. If I were at home it would be so easy to pick up the phone and call people to go check out their apartments, however it’s been super stressful here because I always find it harder to understand people over the phone in Spanish, especially since my ear isn’t quite used to it yet. However, we made it work and went to see three apartments today. We found two we liked but we have more appointments to go see others so I’ll post all that later.

Sorry for such a long post, but I’ll continue to update as I get settled in. Also, please keep in touch whether it’s via facebook or email tory.felle@gmail.com I love getting emails when I’m abroad so please send them my way! Also, if anyone is going to be in Europe in the next couple of months, please stop by and come visit. We’ll always have an open couch for anyone.