LOCO

FOR

SPAIN

View from my window / Argüelles, 1987

Questions or Comments

View from one of the towers of La Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza in 2013

(Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar)

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My journey to Spain got under way back in middle school when I took my first Spanish class, which was with Mrs. Halsted. I even joined the Spanish Club where we made buñuelos. That's all I recall about the club, but I was hooked on Spanish. It was a done deal. 

My favorite teacher overall was Mrs. Marta Gonzalez, who was from Cuba. She taught my sophomore and junior years of high school Spanish. She was the dearest, most enthusiastic teacher I've ever had and sadly, she passed away my senior year. She was my inspiration to major in Spanish. Also during my senior year of high school a college student came to class to talk to us about the possibility of studying in Madrid during our junior year of college. Once again I was hooked, so during my sophomore year in college I applied to do just that. The day that I received the acceptance letter was, and is still to this day, one of the happiest days of my life, and it was about to change immensely.

Most of my fellow program participants and I flew out of O'Hare in late August of 1987 to prepare to begin our academic year abroad at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. I was terribly excited, but also sad to travel so far from my parents, whose tremendous love and support made this journey possible. We students spent a month in a dorm while taking a few intensive courses prior to the beginning of the school year, which began in October. I was excited and motivated to learn as much Spanish as I could in nine months. 

Our next step was to find housing for the rest of the school year. Most of us teamed up, grabbed a Segunda Mano newspaper, and searched high and low for an apartment to rent. Some participants lived with Spanish families. One classmate, whose mother was from Spain, lived with relatives in Madrid. Another participant and I (friends to this day and both living in NYC) finally found an apartment after crashing for a month at other classmates' places, a week here, a week there. It was a great relief to finally have a place to call home, in a neighborhood called Argüelles. We rented a three bedroom apartment so that we could have a Spanish roommate, who we ultimately found. Our apartment was fairly close to campus which allowed us to walk to our classes in about 25 minutes, conveniently saving on transit costs. Rainy or cold days required a quick bus trip. (Since then a subway line has been extended to the university campus from Argüelles.)

The classes that we took were taught in Spanish by instructors of the university, but the classes were specifically designed for international students. Our program was named after the colleges that comprised our program: WIP (Wisconsin, Indiana and Purdue). There were many other U.S. colleges running programs there, so we met and attended classes with many fellow Americans from across the U.S. We also had to take one class from among the regular university courses. I chose a German class because I had also been studying German since my sophomore year of high school and I didn't want my German to get rusty. In hindsight it wasn't such a good idea; I needed to focus on Spanish, and Spanish alone. Following that theme, I've decided to create a website devoted to Spain, and Spain alone because this country captivates me. This will be a work in progress, considering that after each future visit I will update this website. All of the photos/videos are mine unless noted. Some are from as recent as September 2019, but there are many from as far back as 1987, which will be noticeable. (32 years of Spain!!!) Due to double-exposing a roll of film, (remember loading cameras with film?!) several cities are without photos, but most of them are represented by images of my post cards. Thanks for visiting!

​Neil

I'm Loco for Spain! The map below represents my 12 visits, including 2 residencies. (Plus a visit to beautiful Lisbon, Portugal!)

Church of San Isidro (c 1622 to 1664) as seen from the Plaza Mayor in Madrid