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hola a todos y todas welcome to geary diaries the podcast where a bunch of language assistants in

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spain will talk about surviving and thriving abroad we're your hosts will and kendall and

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today we're diving into that moment we all remember stepping off the plane looking around

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and going what have i done we will be talking about our first impressions and arrival chaos

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so tell me will tell me your arrival story what was your first what the heck moment so

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bad move on my part I land in Spain without any cellular data and so I cannot do anything on the

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metro so I get the airport wi-fi take a bunch of screenshots of the maps and let the city take me

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where it does and it all worked out but it was very silly yeah wow I would recommend to anyone

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coming here go ahead and just download the map of Madrid the whole map of Madrid on wi-fi before

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you leave your home country make sure it also includes the school that you work at so if you're

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working outside of the center make sure your map of Madrid includes the school I had no problem

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actually leaving the airport but once I got to my apartment my uber driver dropped me off on the

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opposite side of a huge traffic circle from where my apartment was so he had said something to me

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before i got out of the car in spanish and i just said okay and then when i got out i realized

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i needed to drag my two 50 pound suitcases pretty far so yeah and that first week is just a blur of

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paperwork lots of google translate lots of looking around not really knowing where you are

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and uh it's gonna be hot too how long did it take to get your tie i don't even remember what i do

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remember is showing up to my application appointment or what i thought was my application

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appointment and finding out i had booked the wrong type of appointment so that is how i learned the

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spanish word recoger the hard way i had accidentally booked an appointment to collect my tie instead of

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to apply for one so thankfully the the person administering my appointment gave me some grace

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and allowed me to apply but that was that was a bad move on my part all right when you're just

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arriving we got some quick survival tips number one make your tia appointment as far in advance

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as possible uh it's a crap shoot getting on that website and finding one that is going to

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fit within your visa time so I would say if you can do it on July or August that would be wonderful

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that will help you out massively and you'll be able to go travel through Europe and Africa way

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easier so I would say go do that quickly yeah and then maybe you can also avoid commuting two hours

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one way to your appointment because you just have to take what you can get um speaking of i would

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say just prepare to be tired your brain's going to be working overtime to learn all of your new

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surroundings your neighborhood your commute your co-workers the spanish school system

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the you know the language barrier or the language difference if you're not a native

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spanish speaker so just prepare to be tired and know that it's normal

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and lastly study your route to school and and go go 20 minutes or 30 minutes early on that first

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day because plaza de castilla which is the bus station is incredibly packed and has like three

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underground floors and so you're gonna go up from the metro and you're gonna see all these niveles

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you're gonna be like where do i go um and so you're gonna leave the metro station still

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underground and just go up one escalator but it is it is a tough one yeah i i got i got lost in

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the bus station on my first wet day and then after waiting in line for the bus i discovered you can't

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use your credit card to pay for the bus which of course was my mistake i should have thought of

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that but i didn't and then the atm was down in the bus station so go early go prepared bring

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cash go early go early yeah so and then we just also want to say go have a wonderful beautiful

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time this city is incredible uh it's it'll it'll welcome you with open arms it people want to talk

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here people want to relax here just like go take it for all it is it's going to be beautiful it's

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going to be hard it's going to be great it's it's it's going to be wonderful yeah enjoy your time

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enjoy your time it's an amazing experience so thank you all for hanging out with us

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on this first episode and I hope you guys have an absolutely wonderful experience like we did

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thank you hasta luego