By asthaa
It’s nearly 11 pm and six American college juniors sit in silence staring at the Palacio Real (The Royal Palace of Madrid). Nobody moves for a couple of minutes. As the gold and cream building glitters in the night, we soak in the crowd and scene while our new Spanish friends chat on the steps facing the palace. If someone asked me to pick a favorite image in the past three days, I would choose this one. After an overwhelming two days, on our second night it hit me – here I am in Madrid enjoying myself with a group of extraordinary students from my university, experiencing something completely new yet so familiar. This night reminded me of ones spent on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or an afternoon walking around the Taj Mahal. As a student in D.C. with family in India, it was humbling to see the Palacio and feel how similar these cultures were despite our differences.
For the past few hours I was doing a host of things I had only done separately. In a single day, fourteen GW students were learning a new city, practicing a language that we needed to improve upon quickly, and understanding the cultural subtleties of a different country. Things I am working on these days include eating sandwiches with a knife and fork, kissing a friend on both cheeks as a greeting, and the using the word "vale" (okay). I have realized the biggest challenge will be forcing myself to speak Spanish as much as possible. I can already tell that encouragement and a push for speaking Spanish from Nico and Jose, our new friends, made a difference in my confidence in just a few hours, and I will make it a priority to let speaking Spanish become a habit.
Though our orientation has been a lot to take in, I’m enjoying tasting Spanish sangria and paella for now. In just a day, I’ll meet my new Spanish family, whom I’ve only communicated with via phone and email. And this week I will begin classes in western European politics, art history, flamenco, and Spanish film. I can already tell these next four months will fly by.
With such a warm welcome, I can only imagine what this semester will have in store for us GW students in Madrid. Whether it has been the “Bienvenidos a Madrid” of a local shop owner or the quick transition of our La Autonoma student tour guides to friends, Madrid is beginning to feel like home away from home already.