(upbeat music)
(Madison speaks Spanish)
My name is Madison.
I'm going to be doing the takeovers for today,
and yeah, I'm just going to show you guys a little bit
about what my life looks here,
living in Madrid, Spain,
and I'm really excited to show you guys.
So today is Tuesday here in Madrid.
I just woke up not too long ago.
It's ten in the morning.
So right now I'm actually not in school.
We start school this Friday, actually,
so I have three days left of summer.
So I will definitely tell you guys all
about what I do at school,
but today, however, I will not be going to school,
so I'll show you guys kind of what I do
on my days off here in Madrid.
Right now I'm actually about to head to the gym,
so I will show you guys around the city as I walk there.
It's about 10 minutes from my house.
First of all,
I just wanted to tell you guys a bit about myself.
I'm 24 years old.
I'm from the United States,
grew up in Colorado and I graduated
from East Carolina University.
I got my bachelor's of arts in English,
minored in linguistics,
and I also received my TEFL certification
from International TEFL Academy,
and I actually did the online course.
(ambient city noise)
So I thought I'd share with you guys
how I ended up in Madrid.
So I'm actually coming up on my one year of living here.
I already completed the nine month program working
with my school and I've returned
to work with them for a second year.
So I actually came here with the program CIEE,
and they were able to help me with the process
in order to get set up at a school,
helped me with my student visa
and all that good stuff.
However,
there's many other programs that you could apply to.
I know UP is also a good program
that helps you a lot throughout the process,
or you can just apply through the Spanish ministry,
which is what a lot of people do.
Okay, now we're in Puerta de Sol.
This is a very, very well-known area
in the city center of Madrid.
I live about a ten minute walk that way.
I live in the neighborhood del Barrio de las Letras.
I really like it a lot.
Last year, I lived in Malasana,
which is also a really great neighborhood here.
And yeah, later when I back home,
I will give you guys a house tour,
but that is Puerta de Sol.
(ambient city noise)
So I work in a secondary school here in Spain.
That's basically like a high school
and a middle school combined,
so the kids are ages 11 to 16.
Hey guys, so I thought I would give you guys a house tour.
Before I show you where I live,
I would like to make a disclaimer.
The place that my roommates and I have found
is a lot bigger than most places here in Spain.
We got extremely lucky
before we left for the States for the summer.
We actually thought it was smart to get an apartment,
that way we could store all our stuff here
during the summer and then come back to an apartment.
The downside was that we had to pay rent
when we weren't living here,
but it actually really paid off
and we absolutely love our place.
Here, we have the living room
and then we have a dining room in here.
This is where you dry your clothes
'cause there's no dryers in Spain.
Here's my adorable cat.
We have this really cool balcony.
(ambient city noises)
So I live with four other girls.
Two of them are my friends from college,
and then the other girl was somebody I met here, last year.
Here is my room.
It is very small,
but it gets the job done.
Next, we have my bathroom.
We have another bathroom.
One of my roommates rooms,
another one of my roommates rooms.
We have our kitchen, which is really quite big.
Amazing.
(humming)
Another bathroom is in here,
and then the final bedroom is back here.
So right now I'm paying 425 for this apartment,
and that is not including utilities or wifi.
I would say 400 to 600
is gonna be your average price
if you're living in the city center.
However,
if you choose to live a little farther out
from the city center,
I would say the average price would be 250 to 400.
I've known lots of people who live outside the city center
in really nice places,
and they don't pay a lot at all.
Like I said,
this house is a lot bigger than the one I lived in last year
and much bigger than the average apartment here in Spain.
We just got really lucky with what we found
and it was the perfect timing,
but it is pretty easy here to find an apartment.
Most everyone uses this web application called Idealista,
where it's very easy to contact people and visit apartments.
I would recommend if you're coming to Spain,
to wait until you are here to find something
because you can get scammed if you secure something
before seeing it.
I chose Spain because I wanted to practice my Spanish.
I studied Spanish for about five years
and I also chose Spain because I love the culture here
and I knew I wanted to be somewhere in Europe.
The COVID situation right now in Spain
is actually pretty normal.
It's a lot better than it was last year.
Currently the only restrictions right now are
really wearing your mask when you're indoors
or transportation,
and then of course,
there's still some restrictions
on nightlife and going out and the amount of people,
you know, that can be in a restaurant
or bar at the same time.
But other than that, you know,
I think the COVID cases are actually pretty steady
here right now.
And Spain has a big percent
of the population vaccinated right now, which is good.
I would definitely recommend finding a job beforehand.
And by doing that,
you can apply to one of the programs such as NALCAP,
or CIEE, UP International,
any of those in order to securing a job beforehand.
Otherwise it is quite difficult to find a job
in Spain once you're here.
The only other ones that you really do is
do private tutoring or lessons on the side.
So no, I do not live alone.
I live with three other people.
Earlier, I said four, scratch that.
I live with three other people,
so total of four.
Last year, I lived with two other people.
So yeah, and it's quite easy to find roommates out here,
to meet other language assistants,
people who are doing the same exact thing as you,
so that shouldn't be an issue.
As for the money aspect,
money is definitely tight.
You definitely won't really save any.
If that you don't go out,
you don't spend any extra money.
you could save a little bit,
but the 1000 will cover
all your basic needs, for sure.
So that's the good part.
(ambient city noise)
Right now, I'm going to one of my favorite parks in Madrid.
This park is called Retiro.
(traffic noises)
It is one of the best parks in Madrid,
although Madrid does have many parks,
this is definitely one of the biggest ones here.
(ambient noise)
(footsteps crunching)
So, the visa unfortunately only lasts
about three months after it expires.
You have to apply for this card called a TA card.
It's basically a temporary residency card.
The student visa, the process of getting that,
not the funnest experience,
but however, it's very doable,
and luckily you can find lots of guides online
on how to apply for your student visa.
For my apartment last year,
we only signed about a nine month contract.
And then for my apartment this year,
yes, I signed a one year contract.
And like I said, I found my apartment on Idealista.
Honestly not too many.
Honestly,
life in Europe is pretty similar to life in America,
more or less.
Minor differences of course.
My biggest culture shock was
how late they eat dinner
and how late they stay up,
nothing huge, but something that's just very different
than we're used to in the United States.
I would honestly say pack as light as you can.
Of course bring your necessary clothes, toiletries,
all that good stuff, shoes.
But there's lots of shopping in Spain.
So anything for your room or new clothes that you need,
you can definitely find here.
So we get a stipend each month of 1000 euros
from the schools that we teach in.
From doing online private tutoring
I've been averaging, you know,
60 to a 100 extra a week, helped a lot.
Honestly,
any extra money you can make here will help you a lot
in the long run.
And yeah, and the hours that I work at my school.
So you either where you work four days a week,
Monday through Thursday,
Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday.
So you've there have one of those two days off.
And generally I go in around 8:30 AM
and I get out around two as for my private tutoring.
I do that in the afternoon and I'll usually work from four
until eight or nine at night, depending on the day.
And how many students I have,
you do need a college degree to teach in Spain. However you,
it is not necessary to have a tuffle certificate to work in
the schools, through the knockout program or CIE.
But if you want to do private tutoring,
then I would definitely recommend getting a tough
certificate for that. Yes,
I do teach with my peer sayings by tattoos.
Actually I have a lot of tattoos and they don't care at all.
The schools are very, very relaxed, very laid back.
The dress code is also very casual. You can wear jeans,
you can wear tennis shoes, you can wear sandals.
They it's very, very casual.
So,
and everyone is very accepting and cool about everything.