My first class of this semester was Strategic Management. It was not only for us a totally new environment, but also for our professor, who was also new at Carlos III. He did not know anything about the projector, so we started off without lecture slides, which was quite annoying. Therefore he had to write everything in English, which is very hard for Spanish people, on the blackboard. That of course went not without mistakes. And I even did not mention his accent, which is so funny. Overall a great start of my classes. The second one, Organizational Economics, was not that much better. The class takes one hour, and all we did was watching a movie about Enron. For me, that are things I cannot understand. Why watch a movie in class while we can also do that at home? Waste of time if you ask me. Also, the pace of lecturing is so slow; it feels like being on high school again. Obligatory presence, making homework, classes of at max 30 persons. That’s why I joined university!
Tuesday, again at 9 a.m., I started with Operations Management, another quite interesting subject. Again a new professor, so it was the same song as yesterday morning; almost everything went wrong! One hour wasted, I can say afterwards. The next class was supposed to be Human Resource Management, but some guy announced that the professor was not there and thus the class was cancelled. Omg, can something go right at this university? This meant that I had to wait 4 hours for the next class and that is quite boring to be honest. Especially when I found out that Genesis of the Modern Firm was the most boring, unattractive course ever. Luckily, I had the possibility to choose 2 ways of following the course, namely make 1 presentation and 2 five-page academic papers, or just make the final exam. Well, that was an easy choice for me, because the last choice meant that I would not have to wait every Tuesday and Thursday for four hours. So the final exam it was.
That evening we had a birthday party of one of our roommates, Boyd. His girlfriend bought a gourmet set and we bought the cake, so the party could begin! Everybody enjoyed the food and of course our fantastic Disney Cars cake.
The next day is college wise the best day, only one hour of classes! It was Strategic Management again and it still had not improved. The teacher had no account so he could not log into the computer, and therefore he had to use the blackboard again. It makes a lecture even more boring.
A lot of things still had to be arranged, so Kelly and I went to a Carrefour supermarket to get a printer, because we thought that would be cheaper than printing everything on the university. But after some calculations, we came to the conclusion that buying a printer was not cheaper so we decided not to buy one. Then we went back to the university again, because we still needed a ticket for the welcome party that evening at Club Cocó. Arriving at ESN, we saw a huge queue of people waiting to get a ticket. We still managed to get one and that meant getting free entrance and 2 drinks for the super cheap price of only 10 euros. Well, it is cheap for going to a club in Madrid, where one drink normally costs about 8-10 euros.
Before going to Cocó, we first joined a botellon at Plaza del Rey. A lot of people we already met were just drinking on the street, which is a quite common thing to do in Madrid. When you go to Madrid, you should definitely join one! After this nice botellon, we went to Club Cocó. Again a very long queue, but we managed to get in front with some people so we were in quite fast. Every drink costs the same, so I got myself a red vodka Red Bull and started to enjoy the evening. The only thing I do not like about clubs is the music. Techno and dance are just not my things. Going to a nice bar is for me a better way of going out, but this was a nice thing to experience. At 4 a.m. I was back home and went straight for my bed.
Thursday, we skipped the 9 a.m. class, because that is way too early for students who have partied the night before. Both classes I had that day were not that interesting, because we just discussed the questions we had to make at home. That is not very productive if you ask me. I would put the answers on BlackBoard, or Aula Global as they call it here, and discuss more important things in a lecture. When we got home, I went straight for my bed to get some extra sleep.
Friday was my weekly day off and Annemarie, Kelly and I decided to go the Parque Rio to relax. It was, one could say as usual, more than 30 degrees Celsius and that meant for all of us: getting some extra tan. We all got tanned, but Kelly and Annemarie also got a bit burned, which hurt next day. Man, what do I love those days!
We also showed Annemarie our little palace in Calle de Don Ramón de la Cruz. She was amazed by the size of our kitchen and also our bedroom, which are indeed not small. We ate and drank a bit and then we went to Sol to get ourselves some dinner. We ended up at a café / bar near Plaza Mayor, where we could get 12 tapas and free sangria for 23 euros. Especially the free sangria looked tempting, so we decided to sit there and enjoy the rest of the evening.
Saturday I had to study and do my homework, because the professor would check it. God, it really felt going back to high school. Sunday we decided to do something very nice, going to the finish of the Spanish cycling race called La Vuelta.
I expected it to be way more crowded, but we were able to stand in front so we could see the whole spectacle. The riders would pass our position 11 times, so we could not miss them! We also met a lovely American couple from Portland and with them we enjoyed watched La Vuelta. This is what I call a nice day!Well, I can say that this was a hell of a first week. Almost nothing went as it should. Hopefully things go better next week. To find out, you have to continue reading my blog …
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