Welcome back to another blog post about my Semester in Spain!! This week, experience the wonders of waiting in line for 2 hours, going to a desert forest, and watching ink diffuse in cold water (among other stuff)!! But for real, this week was an amazing first week of classes, so enjoy!

Monday, September 2nd

nothing happened…

Well, that is half the story. On Monday, we registered for our classes! As usual, this is a pretty time as we rush to make sure we get the classes and sections that make our schedules work. Unlike VCU, we cannot put our classes into a cart before the registering time and then press register for all of them. We have to find each class first, and then press register. Thankfully, all the locals signed up for classes already, so the remaining spots were for international students, and there are not that many international Biomedical Engineering (BME) students signing up, so Panth and I were pretty certain we would get the classes we wanted. And for the most part we did! And for the most exciting part…. wait for it… WE HAVE NO CLASSES ON FRIDAY!!! On the down side, we were not able to officially sign up for one of our classes, Signals and Systems, because it is full. We are guaranteed the class, but not the section we may want, so we may have four classes on Thursday (not ideal, but workable). After that, we went to the University to get our student ID’s. I say that we went to the University, but it was not a direct trip. Apparently we needed our original passports, with neither Panth nor I had, and we found this out on the train to the campus. So we got off, got on the train back to Madrid, got our passports, then went back on the train to the University. And when we got there, we began out wait at 1 for our ID’s. We waited until 2, which was when the office closed for lunch for an hour. When it opened back up at 3, we waited another 30 minutes until it was our turn in line. The meeting only took 2 minutes, and the only words I said to the lady were “Hola” and “Eso es todo?” and then I left with my ID. 2.5 hours of waiting, and that was it. Well, there was nothing I could do about that. We went back home and napped the day away. Nice I know.

Tuesday, September 3rd

Today, we visit Caso del Campo, which is a large “forest” on the edge of Madrid. I put forest in quotes because it looks more like a desert or savanna than a forest. The forest part is not thickly covered in trees, the ground is dirt and not grass, and there was absolutely no low-lying foliage.

Not to say that it was not beautiful, cause it definitely was, but I was just expecting something different. Like more shade and nice places to relax, a lot like Belle Isle in Richmond or Newport News Park in near Yorktown. Not this.

However, we did also go on a gondola ride, which was awesome for two reasons. One, we got a great vantage point of the entire park. And two, apparently I was the only one in our group who was not really afraid of heights, and everyone was freaking out when we got more than 5 meters off the ground. I was dying from laughter, which made my dehydrated self fell a little better lol.

Wednesday, September 4th

SCHOOL STARTS TODAY!!! I know I sound a little too excited for that, but hey, its class in a new country with new people, so yea I was excited. My schedule is not that bad, so I only had 2 classes that day back to back, and then we went home. The commute to the school takes an hour, which is not ideal, but its whatever. What I liked the most is that for both classes, we only went over the syllabus, did super easy stuff, then got out early. Nothing too difficult, since its the first day and its review right now, but even still, the classes do not look as difficult.

The funny thing about today was for our Signals and Systems class, even though we are not registered, they still tell us to go. So we went, and we found out why there is no more space to register for that class. We ran out of seats, so the teacher had to go find some just so that everyone had a seat. It was in fact, a big oof.

Thursday, September 5th

Another day of classes, but sadly Thursday is my early day. I have to be up by 7 to be at the train station by 8 to get to class by 9. Our first class was a lab. We the best time finding out where the lab was because THEY LITERALLY DO NOT SHOW WHERE THE DOOR IS TO THE LABS!! You also need a key in order to get in because apparently they do not trust students with lab stuff, but whatever. Our lab was recording a drop of iodine diffuse in water twice. That was the entire lab (yay). Next week, we are doing something else with viscosity, which should be slightly more interesting. We had to make sure our phones were stable while recording, so I made a pretty ingenious structure out of provided Legos, which I was very proud of. I sadly don’t have a picture of it, but use your imagination. Our next class was Biomedical Instrumentation, and all we did was go over the syllabus, so the 2 hour class became 30 minutes, and we were able to go home early. The class we had to back to in the afternoon was the same deal, and it took us longer to travel to and from the school than it did to take the actual class. But I’m not gonna complain.

Friday, September 6th

NO SCHOOL TODAY!! That is a new feeling I know I will never have again. So Panth and I did a whole lot of nothing that day, and after our post lunch nap (which happens a lot since Zaida makes so much food all the time), we decided to go to the Prado to see some classical art. However, that plan was cut short when we left the house a little later than we wanted and got to the Prado a little after the free ticket hour started. There was a line like you wouldn’t believe!! It was like a new roller coaster opened at an amusement park and you have to wait 2 hours just to ride it once. Except instead of a thrilling roller coaster, its art. So Panth and I skirted away from that and decided to go to Retiro again since we were already out, which was a really good call cause it was a beautiful day out.

We went through a new entrance, and was welcomed by this garden plaza that had fountains and bushes and wonderful views! It was simply breathtaking (it was also golden hour if you couldn’t tell from the picture).

Surprisingly, we had to look really hard to find a couple making out, which is usually a very easy task. We were surprised, but it must have been a slow day.

There also was an art exhibit going on that day in the Crystal Palace (which is just a renovated glass building) with exquisite marble carvings! What amazes me whenever I see works of art such as these is how well people can carve clothing to make it look so real. It always amazes me, and this time was no different. However the outside of the building was beautiful too! Got some good pictures of that too.

Saturday, September 7th

TOLEDO TRIP!! Instead of describing it to you, I am making a vlog (video blog) for that trip, and it will be out soon. Until then, enjoy a couple of pictures!!

Sorry for the length of this blog post, but I wanted to include a lot about Retiro cause I love it so much, as well as the first week of classes. I am currently planning what excursions I will be doing in my time here, so hopefully by next Friday, I will have a better idea of the difficulty of my classes and will know if the density of trips is a good idea (cause I still have to pass my classes. I know, lame). Thanks for reading, and be on the lookout for my vlog coming this week!!!

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