学生写作比赛冠军

您需要了解有关马德里出国留学的知识

文章和照片Alexei Koseff

这Palacio Real in Madrid.

Breaking with every college plan I had previously imagined for myself, I decided at the end of my freshman year that, to get the most out my college experience, I really wanted to study abroad as a sophomore. At Stanford University, we have a remarkable留学计划with 11 foreign campuses, including two in Spanish-speaking countries: one in Santiago, Chile and the other in Madrid, Spain. Wanting an opportunity to improve my Spanish, which was not getting as much use as I wanted in college, and drawn to the opportunity to live and travel in Europe, I chose to apply to the program at Madrid. Because Stanford is on the quarter system, ten weeks in Spain seemed too short of a time to fully appreciate the experience, so I ultimately chose to study abroad for both the winter and spring quarters of my sophomore year. With half of my experience now under my belt, I would like to provide some words of advice on how to approach your own time studying abroad in Madrid.

Getting To Madrid

首先要知道的是：如果您想在欧洲出国留学，那么机会比您想象的要容易获得。由于美国与Schengen District(which is made up of almost every major country in Europe, including Germany, France and Italy—but not the United Kingdom), an American citizen can travel in Europe for up to 90 days without a visa. For a short study experience in a country like Spain, this makes preparation much easier; hypothetically, you could hop on plane to Madrid tomorrow for a 6-week course in Spanish.

但是，不要被引诱到错误的舒适感中；对于那些90天（而且较长的住宿总是更好），学生签证是必要的，并且可能是要获得的重大麻烦。当我第一次经历获得学生签证的过程时，我没想到会跳过这么多的篮球。除了我必须填写的通常的论文和表格（包括我计划的一封信，国际医疗保险的证明以及我在海外经济上支持自己的能力的证明），西班牙领事馆让我亲自出现以进行处理我的应用程序，然后再次捡起它。对我来说幸运的是，旧金山领事馆只有45分钟的车程，但是居住在华盛顿或俄勒冈州的学生必须飞往旧金山，需要一些认真的计划。为了使这种情况复杂化，领事馆每天早晨只开放几个小时，签证接送时间非常具体，这意味着我每天大部分时间都必须搁置一整天，并每次在那里开会时都非常仔细地计划。

If I could give one piece of advice about applying for a student visa, it would be to make sure you allocate enough time to get through the entire process before you have to leave. I decided at the last moment that I wanted to study in Madrid for two quarters and by the time I got an appointment at the Spanish Consulate, I had just over a month before I was scheduled to leave for Spain. The consulate says it can take anywhere from three to six weeks to process a visa application, but they had no interest in helping me get mine as soon as possible. With no way to check on its progress, they just recommended I come back on the Friday before I left—five business weeks later—and hope that my visa was ready to be picked up. Fortunately, in the end, it was. But my bump up against Spanish bureaucracy (and with the cold treatment and leisurely work ethic, that's exactly what the consulate was) was nerve-wracking and stressful. Next time, I know to start preparing much earlier.

到达西班牙：大调整

当您到达西班牙时，您将不可避免地会被一波喷气滞后和文化冲击击中。这些都不是通过任何形式的学术课程来跑步的最佳选择，因此请帮自己一个忙，不要到达您开始的那一天。取而代之的是，至少要提前几天给自己，以适应您在马德里的新生活。

Before I began my program, I spent ten days traveling around Spain with my family. It was in this time that I could finally begin to get a sense of the country, even though I had participated in a cultural orientation and completed the required reading for my program. I grew accustomed to many of the common Spanish customs and rituals, such as saying "谷“晚上9:00吃晚餐（这可能是所有人的最难调整；我不知道我花了多长时间），并且练习了我的西班牙语。

我的家人回到家后，我独自一人在马德里呆了近一个星期。每天，我都会选择几个顶级网站访问，然后将它们用作探索城市其他地区的起点。有时，一个人一个人在那个大城市都很困难，而且真的很孤独，但是我最终掩盖了很多地面并绊倒了我可能从未见过的偏僻网站。我也没有将自己限制在传统的旅游网站上。我一天中的一部分通常是在探索餐馆，商店和社区，然后指出了我想稍后再返回的哪些（我找到了一个很棒的电影院，展示了电影中的电影版本的原创这边走）。

因此，在我的计划启动之前，我知道马德里的大部分地区都知道自己的路，而且我已经开始在这座城市感到舒适。我可能像拇指酸痛一样，是大多数游客Madrileños, but my perspective had already adjusted to thinking like a local, and I think that is more useful than anything else in terms of getting fully adjusted to a new place.

At the monument to Alfonso XII in El Parque del Buen Retiro.

Overcoming the Language Barrier

Even if you are going to Madrid to study Spanish exclusively in a language program, it's best to have some competency with the language under your belt already. Though English is now taught at all Spanish schools, almost everybody seems really uncomfortable carrying on a conversation in English (with the exception of some people in the tourism industry). If you come to Spain with the ability to at the very least express your most basic ideas or needs in Spanish, it will lead to a lot less frustration from the outset.

If you have the chance, the best way to get more out of your experience in Madrid is to do a home-stay. Living with a Madrileño family, instead of fellow foreigners, forces you to practice your Spanish during at least part of the day. By conversing with native speakers, you are exposed to a more natural and advanced Spanish, which helps you to improve your vocabulary and grammar (sometimes with corrections on the part of your host family). As an added bonus, a home-stay allows you to get to know the city and the culture on a more intimate level. For example, almost every day, my host grandmother would cook incredible authentic Spanish food, such as鳄鱼或者Cocido, a delicious and underrated cuisine that I had not had much exposure to before. Though the idea can seem awkward at first, if you don't treat your stay as a business relationship, neither will they. I ate lunch and dinner with my host family every day; through long conversations, we became very close, and they opened up to me a lot about their lives.

My roommate and I celebrating our host mother's birthday.

And though it may seem like an insurmountable challenge, try and speak only in Spanish for the time that you're in Madrid. My program has a Spanish-only rule in place, whereby we promised not to use English during our stay in Spain. Obviously, this was an impossible task; whether I was staying in contact with my family and the world back at home, using the Internet or just alone with my own thoughts, I was exposed to English throughout the day. But the rule was important in that it encouraged us to make sure we were practicing. As a result, the students in my program had a completely different mindset about how we approached the language, and we almost always spoke to each other in Spanish, which is something I never noticed about students in other programs. Even if you don't have a Spanish-only rule, set the goal for yourself and you'll notice how much more your language skills improve.

更深入地探索西班牙

在马德里出国留学时，利用与许多其他欧洲国家的亲密接触可能会感到不可抗拒，但请确保您探索西班牙。尽管每个人都听说过马德里和巴塞罗那（当然充满着迷人的古迹和活动），全国还有很多其他地方，却鲜为人知，但也是美丽而有趣的参观场所。获得西班牙及其历史和文化的真正意识确实会丰富您的出国留学经验。

在西班牙最大，最中央城市的马德里，可以很好地访问飞机，火车和公共汽车，可带您到该国任何地方。花点时间探索您只听或从未知道过的地方：安达卢西亚, the Roman ruins and national parks ofExtremadura, or the university in Salamanca, which is one of the oldest in the world.

住在马德里，还可以轻松前往周围地区。只需半小时的火车乘车，您就可以参观Toledo，前西班牙首都；塞哥维亚（Segovia），据称是迪士尼乐园城堡的灵感；和Alacalá de Henares，Don Quixote作者Miguel de Cervantes的童年时代。当然，请确保您至少预留了几个周末，以探索马德里提供的丰富历史和文化；没有访问El Museo del Prado或者El Parque del Buen Retirowould be a crime.

这Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which has become a landmark of Spanish tourism.

Managing Money

Make sure to get a job before you come to Madrid, because nothing blows your bank account faster than traveling in Europe. Save up as much money as you can, then be prepared to watch as it steadily dwindles (even traveling on the cheap, the costs for transportation, accommodations, eating and visiting the sites really add up). Just accept that this is a necessary part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and then enjoy yourself as much as possible.

当然，花钱并不意味着将其扔掉。如果您进行研究，您可以找到很多方法来在这里和那里节省几美元。我现在可以提出的两个建议：找出何时自由游览并以便宜的价格体验夜生活。尤其是在马德里，许多网站都提供您不必付费进入的时间。欧洲最重要的两座艺术博物馆 - 普拉多和Reina Sofía- 每天和周末的大部分时间都可以免费提供最后两个小时。另外，通过避开酒吧和discotecas面向游客，您可以节省一些荒谬的价格的痛苦。在西班牙人（或知情人士）经常光顾的地方，您通常只需几欧元购买饮料，并获得一盘免费tapas。Walking the streets, especially on a weeknight, you will inevitably get approached by plenty of people offering you free entrance, and maybe even a free drink, at their bar.

Culture Shock

Sometimes, the most obvious lessons are the ones that take a while to learn. While studying in Madrid, always keep in mind that you are a visitor to a foreign culture, and recognize that Spain is not a human museum exhibit, but a living, breathing country, just like back home. It is especially important to remember that while Catholicism is a vital part of the country's history and continues to be an important part of many people's lives.

对我来说，一个巨大的启示是发生在Monasterio de la Virgen de Guadalupe。On a weekend trip with my program, we visited the monastery, which houses an important icon of the Virgin Mary. After our tour, we were invited by a priest to climb a tower to the altar and see the statue of the Virgin. What was lost in translation was that this is a significant pilgrimage, meant for Catholics to come and adore an icon whose discovery is considered a miracle.

To the surprise of the Catholic students in our group, almost all of us went up to see the Virgin, with the majority of us approaching it like a cultural encounter, instead of the important religious experience that it was. Afterwards, some of them even expressed to me their surprise that we had all chosen to climb the tower. Though I think they understood that we didn't mean offense, for them, it still felt like we were minimizing what was a really special moment for them. Afterwards, instead of backing away from exposing myself to Catholic-related tourist sites (which would mean missing half of what Spain has to offer), I have just made sure to educate myself better, especially about appropriate behavior, anytime I was visiting a place.

瓜达卢佩修道院的露台。

Alexei Koseffis a sophomore at Stanford University. He is currently spending his winter and spring quarters studying abroad in Madrid.