Journey in Madrid: Venturing Past the Borders of Spain

Author: Bryton Grisham | Major: Electrical Engineering | Semester: Fall 2022

Another month has passed, and the weather is finally taking a turn towards the winter season. I have traveled outside of the Spain some more and visited four new countries! As yet another reminder, my name is Bryton Grisham, I am majoring in Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas, and I am studying abroad in Spain on the U of A exchange program: UC3M. I spent the majority of my previous post discussing the many travels that I did over the month of October. I will be talking about more of the same but will first go over some academic highlights from the month of November. I had three more midterms to complete, one from my Analog Electronics course and the other two from my mathematics classes. The classes don’t give out almost any homework still, besides doing some theoretical work before and after labs. The work for my online senior design class I am taking with the University of Arkansas is coming to a close this semester. I am working on an Electrical Engineering project with three of my peers. My group is finishing up its circuit board design and the logistics of our project, such as material costs, component selection, and simulations. All my classes are about to end, and I see myself studying hard for all of my finals, which start the day after my last day of normal classes, so no sleep for the weary!

Now for all the juicy cultural updates of my journey. I had the pleasure to go on five extraordinary trips over the month of November, seeing a few more parts of Spain and the best cities across western Europe and northern Africa. My first trip was over the first weekend of November, I decided to take a train to Barcelona, Spain. I heard such good things about the place from other abroad students who have already visited. The whole city gave me a Florida vibe, as the weather was in the mid-70s and the sun was shining all weekend long. I ate at a Mexican and Spanish restaurant while I was there, and the Mexican restaurant served me this delicious, blackened sea bass and cooked up their distinct guacamole right beside my table. I mostly enjoyed taking a scroll by the coast as Barcelona is on the Mediterranean Sea. I also visited the local gothic architecture imbedded in the local neighborhoods and the massive cathedral, the La Sagrada. The whole weekend trip was so memorable.

Two days after getting back from that trip, I took another train and class on Tuesday to Toledo, Spain. This little town is only 40 minutes out from Madrid, but what makes the place so cool is that it is all built on this huge hill. When you get near the top, you can see out for miles at the Spanish countryside and the city dwelling below. There weren’t much touristy things to do there, so I mostly walked around to enjoy the view. This was definitely the least exciting of my trips in November.

Now we get into the big trips, starting with my three-day trip down to Tangier, Morocco. I got to experience this trip with two of my roommates, which meant we split the cost of the Airbnb we stayed at and all the transportation costs. The Moroccan culture was unlike any other place I have been before. There is more street merchants and hagglers than I thought there would be and their traffic is insane. They have the rule as walk on the crosswalk whenever there is no cars, so they have absolutely no pedestrian walking signals, just use your best judgement. The food was also a whole new experience. Their breakfast food was so unique, serving different types of breads, served with honey, a sour cream sauce, and a liquidly peanut-tasting sauce. What stood out the most was probably our camel ride along the beach, that was a cool thing to do. We also took time to visit a mountain village called Chefcoauhen. It is known for having bright blue buildings in the upper part of the village. I will never forget visiting Morocco and have a greater appreciation for African culture as a result.

My fourth trip was Definitely my favorite of the month. I traveled over a four-day span to London, followed by Paris. The trip was a nonstop thrill, I saw so many famous attractions that I have known about since being in elementary school. I visited the Tower of London, Tower bridge, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and the actual 221B baker street apartment of Sherlock Holmes. That was only London; in Paris I went to the Eiffel tower, the Louvre, the famous Arc, and then did a river cruise to see many more places in a short span of time. The food was the best part of the trip, in London I ate the full English breakfast, at an Argentinian restaurant, fish and chips, and red velvet pancakes. The food in Paris was even better, I had roasted duck, an entire breaded Pig’s leg, and beignets. I was fortunate, because it was supposed to rain on two days of my trip, but it only rained for a total of 3 hours over the entire trip. This was also the first solo trip via airplane that I have done in my life, but I managed it nicely and enjoyed my trip.

The last trip of November was over the last weekend of November. I traveled to Geneva, Switzerland. I also took trains to get to the alpine village of Zermatt in the western Swiss alps. I went up their huge mountain there, the Matterhorn and took in the majestic view of the village below and the entire mountain range. It was cool to have snow that was over 3 feet deep, I never experienced snow that deep before. I enjoyed the local Swiss delicacies, their Swiss chocolate and cheese fondue. The colder environment made me a little homesick, as when I return home 2 days before Christmas, the weather will be nice and chilly.

That about wraps up my time abroad during this past month, it was definitely packed to the brim with new experiences and travels, I have seen basically all of Spain now, I am looking forward to my final month abroad and enjoy the holiday season while in Spain. I, once again, still absolutely recommend other students to study abroad in Spain, there are so many Spanish cities to visit for cheap and for those who want to visit the rest of Europe, Madrid is a great hub point for western Europe. I would advise planning ahead what weekends you want to travel to get the cheapest flights and reservations possible, as all the trips do add up. The Honors College has given me the opportunity to explore Europe with their generous funding, so come and experience Spain for yourself, and I will be back with my last post after Christmas to discuss what I did in my final weeks of studying abroad.