Mia Sheppard

¡Hola de España! (Hello from Spain!) Our nearly two day trip from Chicago, Illinois to Madrid, Spain has sadly come to an end. Needless to say, we have had a very long and eventful day - from being on an eight hour flight, to hitting the ground running with activities as soon as we arrived in Spain.

Exploring Madrid (I'm in between Kirt and David) 

Before this trip, the longest flight that I had been on was for maybe two or three hours. I had no clue what to expect from an overnight flight or the two meals that were to be provided. Surprisingly, the flight was not bad at all! As soon as I got on the plane, I found a movie that I wanted to watch for a couple of hours and then slept for the rest of the flight. For dinner, we were given the choice between chicken or pasta. From what I heard from other students on the trip, the chicken wasn’t all that great, but I really enjoyed the pasta! I didn’t feel very much jet lag when we first got to Madrid because I was so excited about seeing the city and taking everything in, but later in the day it caught up with me and now I am more than eager to go to sleep.

Group photo in Chicago before boarding our flight

A view of Madrid as we were landing

We visited our first museum today in the city center of Madrid. After taking an adventurous walk through Madrid, we arrived at the Reina Sofía Modern Art Museum and were able to see beautiful artwork created by Spanish artists, including Pablo Picasso. Our tour guide, Mario, had us look at Picasso's paintings from a different perspective and explained the cubic method that he used to create his breathtaking pieces. The painting that I liked the most of his was called Guernica, which was completed in 1937. What I really loved about it was that it told a story and you could really see the hurt and pain in the characters’ eyes. According to Mario, Picasso created the painting in response to the bombing of a Northern Spain city by Nazi Germany.

Our tour guide, Mario, leading us through the museum

A challenge that I foresee in the future is the language barrier between myself and the citizens of Spain, because I know little to no Spanish. Today, when we went out to lunch, there was a little miscommunication with our waitress. During the entire meal we had been trying to scrape together all of the knowledge we had of Spanish to order. When we were all done, we had thought that we had asked for the check to be split four ways, but we accidentally said that we wanted four more dishes and didn’t realize that we were wrong until she brought them out to us! Making sure we are ordering the right things in Spanish will be something that we all need work on for next time. I can’t wait to see what’s coming up next in our Spain adventure!