Zaragossa

Just a few more days, then I’ll fly back to Berlin. A Spontaneous Weekend in Madrid The weekend before last, I wanted to make the most of the time I had left. Zaragoza sits almost exactly halfway between Madrid and Barcelona. I’d already been to Barcelona but Madrid? I’d managed to skip it entirely. So I booked a bus at short notice, packed light, and let myself drift. Madrid is expensive. More than Zaragoza, more than I’d expected. But the city is worth it. A few highlights: ...

Before I left, I had pictured myself chatting away in Spanish after two months. Now, a month and a half in, I order my coffee, and still sometimes nobody understands me. Zero as a starting point I had literally zero Spanish before this trip. No classes, no Spanish-speaking friends, no real contact with the language whatsoever. The plan was simple: start from scratch. In the weeks before leaving, motivation was high. I listened to Spanish podcasts, worked through language courses, drilled vocabulary cards, and watched Spanish films with subtitles, just to get a feel for how the language sounds. ...