Where I Lived in Madrid

While studying abroad in Madrid, Spain, I lived in a residencia. What is a residencia? It is basically a dorm like residential facility. You get your own private bedroom and bathroom and share a kitchen with other people throughout the building. You have to maintain and clean your own room but the rest of the building is maintained and cleaned every day.  The building itself has 7 floors. There are private rooms on each floor and on the 1st floor there is a laundry room where everyone in the building can wash and dry their laundry.  On the 3rd floor there is a nice outside terrace area, and the kitchens were located on the 5th and 7th floors. Overall it is a really nice building and a nice place to live.

Living at the residencia, felt more like having your own apartment than living in a dorm though. I had to cook for myself which was a bit of a struggle because I do not know how to cook very well. I ended up sticking to the basics and had a lot of pizza, pasta, and sandwiches. I also had to do my own laundry which cost 3 Euros for washer and 2 Euros for dryer. My room did tend to get really dusty but that was probably because I left the windows open all the time to have air circulating throughout the room. I'm a clean freak so I did find myself dusting & cleaning all the time. 

My reason for picking the residencia instead of choosing the homestay option was because the residencia is located in downtown Madrid. Who wouldn't want to live downtown Madrid? I wanted to get the chance to experience the city life. The only downside to the residencia that I noticed was that there is no air conditioning in the building. I bought a fan as soon as I got there so that helped a little.

I did get a chance to talk to the other interns who lived with a homestay family and I found that there are only a few reasons why I would pick that option. Living with homestay families has a few perks like they do your laundry twice a week. That is really nice because you save money. You sweat every day from the Madrid summer heat and re-wearing sweaty clothes is not comfortable so having set laundry days is nice. The homestay families also give you breakfast and dinner. If you can't make it for dinner they will save your plate for you. It can get expensive eating out all the time or like in my case I didn't even know what to make for myself so having someone to assist with meals is definitely a perk.

Ultimately I think that your living arrangement while studying abroad is a personal one and comes down to independence. Some people may choose to experience everything in a more grown up, independent way. While others may choose to focus on the internship and may not want to worry about having to make daily decisions about meals and laundry. Either choice is just a small thing in the grand scheme of the whole experience; which is awesome!