A room with a view

Arriving in Madrid for the first time can be a daunting experience, especially when you have nowhere to stay. I found this out for myself, when I arrived in Madrid a few weeks ago. If you’re taking one of the more intensive courses at Inhispania, the website is a helpful place to start when it comes to finding accommodation and is also a great way to relieve yourself of all the stresses that come with it. But if you’re planning to stay in Madrid for a bit longer or even if you just fancy seeing all the options for yourself, you have come to the right place.

Abono joven, where art thou?

Why is everything so complicated in Spain? This is something I seem to be asking myself several times a day (definitely has nothing to do with the fact that my Spanish is teríble…). Buying an “abono joven”, a monthly ticket for all public transport, (you get the “young persons” discount if you're under 23) was on my list of things to do for three weeks before I actually worked out how to do it. This was partly down to my own laziness, but aside from that, every person I spoke to seemed to tell me something different: “go to a tobacco shop”, “go the the ticket office in the station”, “do it on the website”, “call this number”. The list goes on.

Fiesta, fiesta, fiesta

This Friday, the 12th October, is a national holiday in Spain: El “Día de la Fiesta Nacional de España”. Despite being originally intended to commemorate Christopher Columbus’s discovery of South America in 1492, in recent years the Spanish government has been eager to replace the festival’s links to colonialism with a sense of national and military pride. Shop doors will close (Inhispania's too, don't forget!), the people of Madrid will grab their cameras and the city will make way for an impressive military parade.