The first week so far in Madrid has been amazing. I arrived very early in the morning on Wednesday after getting basically no sleep on the plane so the first thing I did when I got home was go to sleep. After that however, it has been super fun to be able to go out and explore the city everyday. The two orientation days were also very helpful. Being able to meet all the kids in the program and immediately have a group of Americans to be able to relate to was very nice. Getting to know them has been very fun and they are an excellent support system to fall back on. Along with that, Nuria and Rocio, the program coordinators have been very helpful and have made sure we are comfortable getting acclimated to our new setting. They took us out for two Spanish meals which were both very good. All the food here has been fun and tastes very good. 

Outside of the organization, getting to know my host family has also been super fun. I am staying with a mom and two kids who are both basically the same age as me so it is easy to relate to them. Being able to get to know them and ask them questions everyday at dinner has been a wonderful experience and I feel I already know a lot about them all. This also makes me a lot more comfortable and gives me a good opportunity everyday to practice my Spanish. Being out in the city and interacting with people in stores has also been a good time to speak and practice using Spanish. Having real and natural conversations with native speakers has been really rewarding so far. The city as a whole is super amazing, with all the parks and with how walkable it is. It should be quite easy to see basically all of it and become really comfortable with navigating the city by the end of the 2 months.

Switching focus towards the internship part of the trip, today I had my interview for the company I am going to be working at. My first day of work will be tomorrow. I am working at a think tank centered around education development and how strong and modern education systems can lead to strong democracies. One of the things I like most about this match is it is not solely about Spanish education, but rather it connects to the entire EU. My supervisor was saying during the interview that they often have meetings with organizations and political figures from all across Europe, and that they do a lot of work that crosses borders, which is really cool. Working and communicating with people from all over the world from a Spanish perspective will be something really unique and challenging, but ultimately rewarding in the end. Communication and cultural understanding will be really key in order for me to succeed and be able to help out on all the projects they have going on. They do also focus on Spain specific though problems as well, so I will need to learn a lot about the education system and culture of school here in Spain. I was given a book that details a lot of facts and data about the Spanish education system and how it differs from region to region. I can tell that I will learn a lot about the country and Europe as a whole through this placement.

In terms of the office from a workplace environment, it seems as though it is going to be really fun. It is a small company with less than 10 employees and everyone was very nice when I was meeting them. The president of the company is my supervisor and he was very nice and understanding of the language differences. When he was explaining what they do and how I can help he also gave me the impression that my tasks would be quite meaningful to the company and just busy work for the other employees. It appears I will be collaborating on all the projects and doing a lot of the same work as the other employees. Tomorrow they have a meeting with a group from a different country and I can sit in on it on my first day so that will be cool to be a part of. Also, as the company is quite small, all the coworkers seem to know each other quite well and the environment is really friendly, so I should have a lot of opportunities to talk and practice my Spanish with all of them. I am very exciting to get started working with my company.