Entry #1 – Ashley Baltmanis

I was lucky enough to fly over 2 weeks before classes started with my parents and we traveled around Spain. We started in Madrid and went North going through Segovia, Bilbao, San Sebastian, small mountain cities, and participated in the La Tomatina Festival in Bunol. I absolutely loved Spain. During my time I also did a lot of traveling to other cities and loved them even more than the one before. Madrid itself was also just incredible. I was lucky enough to live in Sol, the heart. There was always something going on and something to do. I loved taking the metro around and exploring, or going into little restaurants and asking to try their specialties. The business school is pretty far out of the city, about an hour on public transportation in Getafe. I would say the city of Getafe is not the best representation of Spain nor Madrid. There is not much to do and it is really just suburbs. I would just come in for classes and leave. I did not spend a lot of time there. The campus was not bad. It is very different from an American campus with the lack of a central air system so no ac or heat in the classrooms and the professors still used chalkboards. The biggest thing I noticed culturally is how much nicer people in the US are. You can make small talk or jokes with a stranger in the grocery store or smile at people passing on the street, but people would look at you like you are crazy if you did that there. Not bad, just different.