First goal reached

Atocha the main railway station in Madrid

Now I can say that I have reached my first goal. I joined the Spanish floorball team UHK Madrid. In the the training there have been ten A team players and five women and five B team players. A team is training on the other half and women and B team on the other half. We are training one hour on Mondays and two hours on Fridays. Playing will cost 70e for the first month and 20e for the next months.

Spanish people advised me not to forget my back bag to train because then police will come after me. They said that someone will call to police because they are afraid of the ETAs bomb what exploded in the train in Madrid.

Impressions from the lesson

Now I can tell first impressions from the lessons. In spain students fill class from the front so It is totally different than in Finland. In Finland seats on the back are always taken first. Echo in the class makes listening harder and echo combained with more noisy students and language what I don't understand perfectly makes it even harder. In Finland there is always some panels on the roof to prevent from echo but here I haven't seen anything. I had one lesson where profesor did not arrive and no one who was there did not have any idea why profesor did not arrive. I heard that during first weeks it is normal that profesor does not arrive without announcing his absence.

Studies started

This week started the studies of business. On Monday I had still language studies so I did not go the lessons. Today and yesterday I attended some lessons. I am not sure yet which courses I actually will choose but I will have at least 5 different courses in the first semester. That means about 20 hours of lessons every week. First lessons have been just introduction the subject and classes have ended in an hour.

Yesterday I found players to make team for football and volleyball mixed in universitys internal league. I also started to look for new flat and I hope that I will find something closer to my faculty.

La noche en blanco

Francesc, Laura, Coni, Iñaki and I in La noche en blanco

On Saturday night in Madrid was arranged event called La noche en blanco. Event offered culture in different forms. Museums were open for free, live music, performers on the street and etc. Center was closed for the cars and streets were full of people. Lines to the museums were so long that we decided not to visit them. Building were lightened nicely and looked beautiful in the night. Photos of the buildings were not good because of the darkness.

Bulls

Cows running in the street before the bull

Bull in the arena

Today I went with Jesus and his friends to see bulls in one village. First Cows and bulls ran in the street with people and after running in the street people were teasing bull in the arena. People with most courage were waiting bull to attack in the middle of arena and others were in the sides of arena. When bull attacked people jumped safe over the fence. People in the side stole too much bulls attention. Danger made watching exciting. Any people was not hurt but bull broke its horn. It was interesting to see this Spanish event.

In the evening there is Noche Blanca in Madrid and I will meet Spanish people who I got to know in Joensuu.

Weather changed

Picture from the law faculty

It seems that the weather have changed permanently to cold. First weeks were always hot almost 40 degrees. Suddenly weather changed much colder. Now it is only 20 degrees. I could say that weather changed from too hot to cold. I preferred the hot weather.

Exam period for the Spanish is over so now library is quite empty. Spanish have a habit to reserve their seats when they go take a break from studying. They leave their notes to the table and go have brake of several hours. I could understand reserving seat for 30 minutes but reserving seat to several hours is odd.

Floorball

On Monday evening I went to the first floorball training in Madrid. Going by train from Alcalá to Atocha in Madrid takes 35 minutes. Then I should add also time what takes to walk to the train station of Alcalá and from Atocha to the sports center. Travelling to one way takes then about 50 minutes. I did not take my stick from Finland so I had to borrow stick. Stick was too short but I was happy to be able to play. Level of the floorball was higher than I expected. Playing was much more organized than playing with the university students and skill level was also good. I will have next training on Friday.

Nature in Spain

Marta and the brown nature

River in Alcalá

Park in Alcalá

Yesterday I went for a walk with Marta to see the river Henares. River is in the side of the city so we could see how nature is here. Grass on the ground is brown and trees are green. Therefore landscape is not green like in Finland and water in the river looked quite dirty.

In Spain people are afraid of stealing. For example Spanish do not leave bikes to the steets, you can not take back bag inside the supermarket and there are alarms in the vodka bottles. On the contrary in the bars and restaurants you always drink and eat first before paying. It seems that they are not afraid at all that someone would leave without paying.

Party in a flat

Yesterday we had first party in a flat. There was event created in a facebook but flat was not full of people. I think there was about thirty people so much less people than in the flat parties in Joensuu. I guess we will see bigger parties in the flats later on.

I feel like I need more routines to do here. Especially I am missing doing sports regurarly but that should change soon. On Monday I will finalize my learning agreement and then I will know how my first semester will be. My business studies will start 21st of September. Tonight I will go watch match of Real Madrid to a bar with Spanish guys.

One week in Spain

Statue in the Plaza Cervantes in the center of Alcalá

The wolf of Alcalá

I am writing this blog post in the library which is open 24 hours during the exam period. I will get new flatmate on next saturday. She is Italian girl who my Romanian flatmate have met before. I have met here Spanish people which is great and not only Erasmus students. Tutors have introduced me to their friends who have been really kind for me. Therefore I have not been only with other Erasmus students. Seeing Spanish people really helps me to practice spanish because with other Erasmus students language changes easily to English. I think that I have been speaking here English and Spanish fifty-fifty.