I'm Emily and this will be the first of many blogs throughout my year travelling. After starting at Coventry University 2 years ago, one of the reasons I applied was due to the opportunity to complete a sandwich degree, which included a year abroad or placement. I have always loved travelling and I have wanted to live abroad for a while. I arrived and had forgotten about the idea and just wanted to complete my degree. However, when making friends through first and second year with Kelly, Holly, Lucy and Jasmine, who were all interested in completing a year abroad I then debated if I could to leave my family, boyfriend and friends behind. I soon realised I wouldn’t want to be in final year without them and I didn't want to miss out on such an amazing opportunity so I applied to study in Madrid and Milan. As I have previously visited both cities I knew that preferably Spain was the country I wanted to live in, but I had to wait for their response.
After waiting for months we finally all received our acceptance emails, and as we had hoped, we were all going to our first choice university in Madrid this September. I applied to study Media and Communications as my first choice and Art and Design as my second choice, both at the European University of Madrid (UEM). I received my first choice to study Media and Communications.
In July this year Kelly, one of my friends who is also studying at Madrid, and I visited Madrid to explore and find a house for us and the three others for September. We visited all the tourist destinations; The Temple of Debod, The Royal Palace of Madrid, Plaza Major, Retiro Parque, Gran Via, among every other typical tourist activity. While stopping for Paella, Tapas and the occasional ice cream, we walked for miles everyday day to explore all we could of the city we were moving too later that year.
Although searching was incredibly time consuming and tedious we finished our trip with a house, in Lavapiés right next to a supermarket, a café and in the perfect area near the city centre. We can move in from the 1st September but I have booked my fight on the 3rd. I haven't decided how I feel about it yet, partly scared but also very excited. I still have so much to organise and do before I leave so its not over yet. However, I am keen to start at a new university and a new course but I am mainly excited about exploring a new country with my friends.
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