Madrid is such a great city! Its a perfect place to go solo, its safe, and has so much to offer.
Best aspects of Madrid
Public Transportation- Its well designed, easy to understand, well connected, and affordable.
Museums- If you love Museums, Madrid is the place to go. Beyond the “Golden Triangle” ( Prado, there are so many special interest museums to pick and choose from.
Day Trips- There are lots of small towns with so much to offer, just a short bus ride away. My favorites are El Escorial and Toledo.
Food, clubs, shopping
Must Sees in Madrid
Museo Prado- One of the most incredible museums I have ever been inside, definitely on the same level as the Louvre. (Bring a student ID, you’ll get in for free!)
Plaza Mayor (Make sure you see Fat Spider-man!)
Parque Retiro
Palacio Real
Teleferico – It was closed when I went in 2016, but it has since been reopened and I hear it’s wonderful.
The hardest I’ve ever laughed in my whole life. And I EMPTIED my wallet for him. Worth every penny.
Off the Beaten Path
Keep an eye out for “Fat Spider-man” in Plaza Mayor
El Rastro Flea Market (Every Sunday at Plaza de Cascorro and Ribera de Curtidores)
Metro Garden (Inside Atocha Station there is a HUGE tropical garden. One step through the doors and you’ve left the city.)
Faro de Moncloa- You can see all of Madrid from the observation tower.
Templo de Debod – An Egyptian Temple plopped down right in the middle of Parque de la Montaña.
Overrated
Palacio Cristal – Its a beautiful palace made completely of glass in the middle of Retiro Park. If you are already in Retiro, you should definitely go and see it, but I wouldn’t make a special trip just to go see it during opening hours. It is listed as an art exhibit, but the “art” inside is the fact that it’s silent.
Palacio Cibeles – Again, beautiful from the outside and you’ll definitely walk past it, but there isn’t much special inside, especially if you’re on a time crunch. Mostly history of Madrid and how the city is laid out.
What and where to eat
Museo de Jamon – I am utterly obsessed with it. 2 Euro’s will get you an incredible sandwich made with Jamon Iberico and a slice of cheese on a flaky, buttery croissant. Truly the love of my life. I can’t tell you how many of those sandwiches I have shoved directly into my face. I wish there was anything like it in the US.
There is a great chocolate shop in Sol Plaza called La Mallorquina, definitely stop there for some sweets.
Ceviche
Paella
Gulas (baby eels)
Chocolate and churros
Tortilla- egg, potato, sometimes onion, always delicious.
Orange Juice- The machines they use to juice oranges in Spain (Italy & France too) make it taste so much better than anything you’ll ever get in the states. Go into any cafe and they’ll have it!
The hardest part of teaching for me is always deciding how much to charge, and its a big part of why I tend towards working for companies, rather than offering private lessons at all. It’s just easier when someone else sets the pay and you agree to it. I hate haggling, and it’s so much worse when you need to set a price based on how much you value yourself.
You should think about what you would be paid for the same job in your home country and base it somewhere off of there. Consider things like demand for native English teachers, level of interest in learning English in the country, and how much the parents would be willing to pay.
I think a good base throughout Europe or Asia is around the equivalent of $20 USD per academic hour (45 minutes). I think any lower than that is selling yourself short. You should also charge more incrementally for more kids, or if you have to travel, or longer lessons, etc.
If you have lots of experience and are super qualified you should of course charge more for that too. I only have a few years of English teaching experience, but I have almost a decade of swim teaching experience, so I charge twice as much for it. I also know that there is a low supply of swim teachers, whereas nearly every American and Brit who goes abroad teaches English.
It’s always a balance for me to compare if the extra money is worth it for the extra pressure I put on myself to be “worth” the money, versus getting less money, but feeling more relaxed when teaching.
Really it’s all relative. Don’t undervalue yourself, but don’t take advantage of people. You can ask for more, and if it’s too much for them to pay, they’ll let you know. My only advice is to not stress about it too much.
The Moscow Perfume Smell- One of my favorite things about Moscow is the smell. I know, I know, that sounds insane. But I swear, late spring through fall, the streets themselves smell SO GOOD. They give off this magical, perfumey smell, all over the city. I’ve brought this up to tons of people and most of them have no idea what I’m talking about, but I know it’s not in my head. I smelled it the very first day I was here, in September of 2019, then it disappeared through the Winter, but it was back in May and I was so happy! It you ever come to Moscow you have to keep a nose out for it.
No Hot Water- Another, not-so-fun, seasonal tidbit about living in Moscow is that for a week or so in the spring/summer, the city turns off the hot water to make sure the pipes are in good working order for the winter. And the water in the pipes is icy. I thought it would be tolerable to take some cold showers, but it’s so cold I’ve actually taken to bringing the electric kettle into the bathroom with me. 3/4th ice water, 1/4th boiling water makes your shower a bit of a hassle, but at least its tolerable!
Nothing Ever Dries- In the winter because the heat is on so high clothes dry crazy fast on a drying rack inside. I felt like it was magic and it’s been one of my favorite things here, but I didn’t think about what would happen in the spring. That magic of course goes away as soon as the heat turns off. Good luck drying a single sock inside in the summer.
I have had way too many experiences with Americans going abroad and getting ANGRY that someone doesn’t speak English. Can you imagine???
I understand that learning a language is hard, and learning the language for every country you visit is not feasible at all, but I think at the bare minimum you should learn a few phrases before you go somewhere where they speak a different language.
These are my survival phrases in any language:
Yes & No
They’re usually really easy words because they’re used so often!
Hello (and goodbye)
It’s polite in most western countries, but it’s actually considered pretty rude not to greet people in some countries.
It’s usually the first word to learn for any language and it’s really cool to have a collection of them.
I’m sorry/ Excuse me
Sometimes it’s the same word!
I can’t speak… (Chinese, Russian, Czech, Spanish, Polish, etc.)
My number one absolute MOST used phrase in any language. lol
Please & Thank you (and you’re welcome)
Being extra polite will really make up for the fact that talking to you and helping you is a huge hassle when you can’t speak the same language.
I would like… (this or that)
My go to for ordering. “I would like this please” and point.
It’s usually a more complicated conjugation (since it’s in the conditional) but if you aren’t learning the whole language, it’s a lot easier to learn the whole phrase.
This is good.
Surprisingly useful phrase. You can use it in a restaurant to compliment the food, or tell a taxi driver that this is a good place to stop and they don’t have to go further into a crowded parking lot.
There are lots of other phrases that would be helpful to learn, but I think these are the ones that will help you the most!
And make sure to do your research on the best translations of these phrases. Like normally I would say “I would like this please” but it’s not a normal thing to say in Russian. Instead, they say “mozhnuh” which is like may I. And in Chinese there are two ways to say I’m sorry: “dway boo chee” or “boo how yeesuh” and they’re used differently in different circumstances. And in many languages you can say versions of hello, but the informal versions are rude to say to someone older than you. Languages are tricky, but they’re so fun!
Should I work for an agency or directly for a school?
It’s a question that I think everyone should ask themselves before they decide to teach abroad, but many people don’t even know to ask it.
It’s so much easier to just send your info to an agency and have them set up all your paperwork, housing, contracts, and school placements without a second thought.
From my personal experience, I’ve met a lot more people who went with a teaching agency than did things on their own, and its fine really, it’s whatever you feel safer, and more comfortable doing! I am only posting this so people can make an informed decision.
If you work abroad for an agency I can guarantee that you will lose profits and have less freedom, whereas if you do the work yourself, you can choose which city to live in, which apartment to live in, you can haggle for pay and benefits, and most importantly you have the freedom to quit without paying a huge penalty to the agency if you decide a certain school isn’t right for you.
I worked for a school that had 8 foreign teachers. 5 of us were hired directly by the school, and 3 of us were hired from agencies. I know there were some minor differences in pay for the teachers who were hired directly based on need and experience, but the real difference was between direct hires and agency hires. I made 24,000 yuan a month (about $3,500), 2 of the agency hires made 19,000/ month ($2,700) for the same exact job even though they had much more experience teaching than I did, and one poor teacher only made 11,000/ month ($1,500) from his agency and he had no choice in where he lived, so he lived almost an hour away with a terrible roommate, whereas I lived in a luxury apartment a 10 minute walk away. The agency just keeps all that money for being a middleman. When he found out he was making less than half as much as us, he brought it up to the agency and found out he’d have to pay THEM 22,000 yuan to get out of his contract.
I’ll admit it is frustrating dealing with visa paperwork, deciding which school to work at, which city to live in, and finding and renting your own apartment, but you can’t argue how much better I had it simply because I had the freedom to work for myself.
There are also tons of resources when putting your resume out there and comparing schools. We got the most hits from DavesESLCafe
This doesn’t apply only to China either. When I started applying for jobs in Russia, I found 2 options that looked really good. One was a chain of kindergartens, and one turned out to be an agency. The school I chose pays 175,000 rubles a month to teach 5 kids with an assistant. The agency wanted me to work at 5 different schools across the city, working crazy hours and living in shared housing that wasn’t even covered and they wanted to pay me 75,000 for it. The only plus side would have been that I wouldn’t have had to look for my own apartment, but for more than double the pay, I’ll accept the hassle.
The very last point I want to make is that while it’s a great opportunity to teach and travel abroad, it’s still a job and it’s hard- you should be getting paid for it. Please do not pay someone for the opportunity to work abroad. That’s crazy and you could be making tons of money instead of hemorrhaging it.
In this essay I will discuss why spring is objectively the worst season.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Spring is the worst. The absolute only thing it has going for it is that it’s starting to warm up.
The whole point of spring is just to try to get through it because then it’s finally summer!
Spring is always so hectic. You have to deal with the end of the school year stuff and finals (whether you’re a student or teacher, or your kids are in school- somehow school scheduling stuff will always seep into your life). There are always a million deadlines in spring that sneak up on you- signing up for summer programs and events, making plans for summer vacations, trying to schedule work off, signing up for school in the fall, there’s so much to do! Plus they expect you to do spring cleaning during all of this? No thank you.
Here is why all of the other seasons are objectively better.
Summer is great: vacations, pools, lakes, barbecues, parties, late nights, warm weather, and no school.
Fall is great: crisp and cool, falling leaves, spooky stories, dressing up for Halloween, pumpkin flavored everything, hayrides, corn mazes, and SOUPS!!
Winter is pretty good too: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, sitting by the fire, playing in the snow, pine scents, how beautiful it is when everything is covered in snow. Even if it’s dreary and cold, the holidays really give winter a leg up in this competition.
But there aren’t even any good holidays in spring. St. Patrick’s day? Meh. Valentine’s day? Even as someone in a relationship who loves love stuff, I think V day is objectively overrated and ends with someone being disappointed 90% of the time. Easter is a nice holiday, but it’s mostly just going to church and eating eggs.
I love that things start growing and turning green again in spring, but even the greenery is better in summer, when it really gets into full swing.
In conclusion, spring is terrible and if you say it’s your favorite season, you’re wrong.
So many non-Americans I know will probably only get the chance to come to the US once, and you can’t see it all. And how are you supposed to know where to start?
First question you need to ask yourself is “Do I want to see cities and history, or do I prefer natural wonders?” If you’re more into the cities, I’m no expert, but I would plan something on the East Coast. Hit up New York, DC, Philly and get some American History.
But my expertise is in road trips. More specifically the greatest road trip throughout the South West.
If you have the means, the time, and the desire, of course you should try to see all of it, though. Every state has so much to offer, and there is so much culture that you miss when you only go to the big tourist spots, but I know it’s unreasonable to try to do it all with limited lime and limited funds. I am, and have always been in the maximizing utility business.
So without further ado- the plan for the Great American Road Trip: Arizona, Utah, & California.
Flying into LAX, or PHX and renting a car from there would be good for a jumping off point because they’re big international hubs, and close to the action.
California: Joshua Tree National Park, Salvation Mountain, and your pick of some great beaches (Oceanside, Huntington, Santa Monica, Malibu, Laguna). You also have the Hollywood sign, Disneyland, and The San Diego Zoo which is widely recognized as the best zoo in the US. You could also go up to Northern California and hit up San Francisco, see the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz, but it’ll add about 11 hours of driving.
Santa Monica Pier
Salvation Mountain
Joshua Tree National Park
Arizona: Sedona, Grand Falls, Havasupai, Grand Canyon, Vermillion Cliffs, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon, Lake Powell, tons of great mountains to hike (Mount Humphries, Picacho Peak, Mount Lemmon, Mount Graham, The Superstitions) and some really cool caves to explore (Kartchner Caverns, Lava River Tunnels, Colossal Mountain Caves, Peppersauce Cave) There are also lots of fun kitschy things and towns scattered throughout Arizona to give you a true “American road trip” experience. Roadside stops like “The Thing,” “Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch,” Tombstone AZ, Jerome AZ, and Bisbee AZ.
Vermilion Cliffs
Horseshoe Bend
Antelope Canyon
Havasu Falls, Havasupai
Chocolate Falls or Grand Falls
Jerome Grand Hotel in Jerome, Arizona
Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch
Sedona Arizona
Tombstone Arizona
Utah: Southern Utah has tons of great hikes and stunning views in their national parks, like Bryce Canyon, and Zion National Park, and Arches National Park. And if you want to go further North into Utah, the Bonneville Salt Flats are also pretty cool. They also have some cool cultural things like Amish Country to buy some soaps, desserts, antiques, and take a step back in time.
Arches National Park
Zion National Park
Bryce Canyon
It would also be easy to add a quick stint to Nevada for Las Vegas, and Death Valley, or even to pop down into Mexico to go to Rocky point or any part of Baja California if you want to turn it into an international trip.
I know there are a million things listed but the true must-sees are fairly close together and have an easy route between them: Joshua Tree & Salvation Mountain in California, on to Arizona, for Sedona, Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and Antelope Canyon, and up a little ways into Utah for Bryce, Zion, and Arches.
*Another thing to keep in mind is that hotels in the US are not like hotels or hostels throughout Europe. Even for the worst quality motel, you’ll be paying upwards of $50 a night. That is part of what makes it so cost-prohibitive to travel in the US. Luckily, when you’re outside of the big cities, you have the option to camp. If you have never camped, this road trip gives you the perfect opportunity to sleep in some beautiful and famous places and really enjoy nature while saving some money.
Everybody gets caught up in those late night schemes with their friends sometimes. You know, the ones where you plan to take over the world, go on a crazy trip, dye your hair magenta, or invent some insane pizza-pasta-sushi-burrito hybrid. But when the opportunity comes to actually do it, they back out.
And I’m not talking about those situations where you can’t do it. sometimes things turn out to be completely unattainable; Plans fall through. Sometimes you can’t get the support, or funding, or other responsibilities come up.
But I see people all the time say I’m going to do this! And they really want to, even if it scares them. But they don’t take the steps. They keep acting like they’ll really do it, but don’t even take the tiniest baby steps. It’ll change your life, and I really think it’s just a mindset holding you back.
I’ll be forever grateful for my family being that type to not only make wild plans, but to actually do them. My mom is the best at those schemes, and it made for an amazing childhood. We’d propose something wacky and Mom would just make it happen!
“Are we seriously going to do this?”
“I don’t see what’s stopping us!”
My mom decided she was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. And she did it. She got out there on her own and then my grandpa died, and she had to come home. She decided to go even bigger and hike the Camino de Santiago… AND THEN SHE DID IT.
I can’t believe her sometimes. She’s truly amazing. And I like to think a little bit of that passed on to me.
Right before my high-school graduation, I sat on the kitchen floor with my friend as we planned our grand European backpacking trip. I signed up for all online classes my first semester of college so there was nothing stopping me from leaving, I saved and saved, I researched and planned. I was so certain that I was going to make it happen with sheer force of will that I turned down the opportunity to go to Europe with my parents. I wanted to do it on my own! But I didn’t realize that people don’t have that mindset. My friend was saying we were going to go in the sense that everyone says they’ll eventually make their pipe-dream come true.
That was really tough.
But then I found somebody who was just as good at following through as the Washburns! We went to Italy and it was magical. And then he had the idea to go to China! I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but it seemed like a great adventure, so we made it happen! And then while we were in China, he decided to apply for a Master’s program…. In Russia. And he got accepted! When he told me he was accepted, we just looked at each other, like…. “Are we going to do this? Are we moving to Russia?” And then we decided we would! And we did it! We made it happen.
I hope that when I have my own kids, I can pass it on to them. I hope we can plan a road trip over breakfast and be there by midnight. I hope I can give my weird kid the ghost hunting road trip of their dreams, just for me and them. I hope that we can make a time investment to figure out how to fix up an old boat together like my dad did so many times. I hope when my kids are all grown up and come home for the weekend, that we can go skydiving on a whim.
I hope I can keep that same sense of “we really can do anything we want to” and pass it on to my kids.
I wrote about the catacombs for a travel writing class I took in college and I went back and edited 5 different pieces together to make this. It’s a little different from my normal writing style, but I hope you like it.
Nothing was turning out the way I expected it to. We couldn’t find any restaurants we could afford, the workers at the Eiffel Tower were on strike, the sun had gone down, and it was bitingly cold. This wasn’t the Paris I was hoping for, and I was desperate for at least one thing to turn out right.
The last thing to try was the catacombs. We followed to map to where they were marked, but there was nothing there! After wandering into 3 different buildings, we were ready to give up, when Lucas saw an unlit, brown sign that said “les catacombes,” in small lettering.
We followed the sign, but all we saw was a dark, unlabeled shack with closed doors. It was late and I felt weird about just opening the door, but we were a bit desperate. We pushed the door open slowly and saw a snooty-looking woman at a desk.
Before we said anything at all she said “twenty-six Euro.”
Taken aback, Lucas asked in English, “is this the catacombs?”
“Oui.”
We handed over the money and took our tickets, and then looked up at her, waiting for some kind of instruction. Without looking up from her book, she pointed to a hole in the floor. Lucas and I looked at each other, shrugged, and headed down and onto a spiral stone staircase.
The air got steadily mustier as we went deeper down. There were bracketed lamps bolted intermittently to the walls, and wherever their light touched the stone, lamp flora was growing. When the stairs finally ended it let us out into a stone tunnel, completely empty, and dark except for one lamp.
At the end of this tunnel, there was a fork, and the oldest man I have ever met was sitting there in a folding chair. He didn’t speak, but pointed to the right. It felt haunted, like we weren’t supposed to be there.
We walked through the narrowing tunnel, getting closer and closer to the main entrance. We stopped in front of the archway to read the words etched there: Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la mort. Lucas translated for me in a whisper saying “Stop! This is the empire of the dead.” The significance of the words struck me as we ducked our heads under the arch and stepped inside.
I love everything spooky, and I thought I knew what to expect, but no article could have prepared me for the sense of existential enlightenment I found there.
Walking between the bones of millions of unknown people made me feel incredibly small. Looking back, I think that most people don’t take the experience as seriously as I did, but then again, most people don’t get to experience it the way I did. The catacombs are usually packed with people. Most people only have the time to snap a few pictures before they’re rushed out to make room for more tourists. It’s rare to find yourself alone down there, with only the souls of those long dead to keep you company.
It was a little bit overwhelming for me to consider that many individuals as a whole. I felt drawn to them and wanted to be able to pay my respects in the same way you can in a modern cemetery.
I sat for a few minutes in front of just one skull. He was a person once, and I wanted to know him, but I knew I never could. This man (or woman) didn’t even get to be buried with his name. Thousands of people walk past him daily, but no one will ever be able to know anything about him. The last person he knew would have died hundreds of years ago, and his bones were dug out of an overcrowded cemetery and tossed together with countless others. I doubt any other tourists have ever even noticed this one person. How could they possibly? He has no distinguishing marks, and if you walked through the catacombs and spent even just a few minutes on each person, it would take you years to get through.
It made me sad for them, but it also helped me come to the realization that my own insignificance can be freeing. There are millions of people laid to rest within the miles of catacombs, billions of others who came before them in countries all over the world, and billions more alive today. I am just one person, not even a grain of sand on a beach in the big picture.
These men and women who lost their identities and individuality to be re-buried in a mass grave underneath the streets of Paris gave me the freedom to no longer care so much about what people think about me. I am free to live without fear of how I will be remembered, because in the scheme of things- it doesn’t really matter.
Nothing I do matters and no one will ever remember me. When I die I will end up a pile of bones, just like everyone else on the planet, and even then my bones won’t even get to be part of history. My bones won’t be displayed for tourists to gawk at, or for teenagers to deface. They’ll be put into a little wooden box, buried six feet under, and the only part of me anyone will ever see again will be a tombstone. Even then, they’ll probably only find it if they’re looking for it.
That freezing winter night, in the silent and empty catacombs, under a Paris bustling with Christmas shoppers, my outlook was completely changed.
If you want to read more about the catacombs and quarry tunnels under the streets of Paris, please check out this amazing National Geographic article and this one from Atlas Obscura.
And if you do go to Paris, I highly recommend prioritizing the catacombs. Its a wonderful experience and one that will stay with you forever.
In the United States there are 2 types to choose from:
An exchange, where you pay a small program fee (a few hundred dollars) and your normal tuition. You pay rent and feed yourself on your budget, just like you would at home.
A program like CIEE, IES, or USAC. Usually running anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a semester.
The choice is pretty clear, right? But people still choose those expensive programs! So they must be offering something amazing, right? Something that makes all that money worth it.
Those programs offer complete support. I have a group to meet you at the airport, they take care of the apartment hunting for you (read you have no choice where or who you live with), they take care of your meals. It’s a smaller group of foreign students together so you get more one on one attention, and they plan outings for you to other cities.
That might appeal to you, but it doesn’t appeal to me. The point of studying abroad is to learn, grow, and become more independent. With those programs, you pay more to lose the freedom of choice. On an exchange you get to do everything yourself, and it gives you so much freedom, and that freedom helps you to build lifelong skills.
On travel: You make fast friends with a huge group of foreign kids who all have the same interests to go to museums, travel, and see history. It’s easy to find a group of people and learn to book your own tickets when and where you want to go.
On housing: You get to find your own apartment, you set your own budget and choose where and who you want to live with! Most of the times you’ll be saving money renting in a foreign country than you would paying for on campus housing at any American university anyways!
On food: You get to grocery shop like a local, and find your own favorite restaurants rather than eating at the dining hall because you already paid for it.
I truly think if I had done a program in Italy rather than an exchange, I never would have built the confidence to go on and live in China and Russia.
The only major benefit I DO see from programs like those is they tend to cater more to other majors besides business and economics, majors like English, drama, or history. I ended up taking masters level design courses, mixed with Italian, Italian history, and Italian markets, and I loved all of them, even as an English Major. I loved getting to choose my own classes out of everything the university offered, just like I would have at my home university. I think when you study abroad, you should be learning about the country you’re in too! So if you do want to try to do an exchange, the only thing I would recommend is saving as many of your electives as you can for it!
And there is one other crazy option too. I know a guy who didn’t find any programs he liked, so he switched to all online classes at his university, found an apartment to share with a bunch of exchange students and just moved to Spain for the semester. I think you miss out on a lot of the camaraderie that way, but you do have more time to travel than anyone else because you aren’t stuck in physical classes! College really is the age to live abroad. Once life gets started and you have commitments and responsibilities, it gets so much harder to leave.
Finding Eden 