TogEUther in Madrid

Starting on the 18th of November, 2018, our Erasmus Club spent a week in Madrid.

The first day started at the Spanish school, called IES Mariano José de Larra, where we met nice Italian, Spanish and French students, who we already knew from their visit to our school in February 2018 and from our trip to Sicily in May 2018. But this was not the only nice surprise because we had the real Spanish breakfast with churros and hot chocolate. After the breakfast, to welcome us and the other project members, the Spanish students and teachers decided to organize some sport and fun activities at school, for example, table tennis, basketball and so on, which was a lot of fun. In the afternoon, we visited the Debod temple Faro de Moncloa and we took some really nice pictures because we were lucky to catch the last rays of sun during the amazing sunset with the view over the city.

The second day was also a lot of fun. After one more typical Spanish breakfast, this time with some toasted white bread with fresh tomato salsa and olive oil, we went to the assembly hall to take part in the welcome ceremony for us and, afterwards, a film festival. It was fun to watch different short films made by the Spanish students to the topic of integration and tolerance. Of course, also our short movie “Behind the mask”was shown and we were excited and a little bit nervous to watch the film that we have been working at for such a long time on the big screen.  In the afternoon, we went to the Madrid Río for a sightseeing tour and had some time for shopping, too.

On the third day, we did a photo rally in Madrid with groups of six students of different nationalities. It was kind of new for us to speak English with different accents, so it was great to do such a rally together. After that, we went to the city hall, which was very interesting. In the afternoon, we went to the beautiful park called “Retiro” with an amazing Chrystal Palace made out of glass. We went also to the biggest museum in Europe called “Prado” with beautiful and interesting paintings.

On Thursday, after the visit to the school, we visited the Royal Palace in Madrid and a typical Spanish market, which was a little bit expensive, but it was interesting to see how different the food culture is in Spain. We also went in the evening to the farewell party, which was organised by the parents of the Spanish students for us. They made typical Spanish dinner for us, which was very tasty, but, of course, it was much more interesting to spend some more time with the Spanish, French and Italian students, so we danced together and had a lot of fun.

On Friday after the school, we went to the museum of modern art called “Reina Sofía”. Here, again, we had a rally in groups of 4 international students, which was definitely more fun than just to walk around the museum.

It was a very nice and informative week. Madrid is different compared to the German cities. The food was quite different, too, but very delicious. We were very sad to leave, but we will write to our friends from Spain, France and Italy and keep in contact – together!