TragaTapas: Beer and tapas, of course

If it's Friday, you're with your friends and you just finished your classes or your exams and don't want to go home and sleep, but rather celebrate the weekend, I recommend this great place in Madrid: TragaTapas. For 3 euros you can get a bucket of 5 small San Miguel beers and spend the afternoon there or just start the evening, it's up to you. And of course, you can go there any other day of the week. The staff is really nice and they have a large selection of tapas and raciones (the larger dishes). We tried the chicken wings, sushi and the spicy potatoes, but there's much more! Go give it a look!

Tapas, tapas, tapas!

Who doesn't like tapas? Whether they come in the form of potato chips or peanuts or something really tasty - like all these traditional Spanish things I sometimes don't even know what they are, but always try them - everybody likes tapas! Right? You haven't been to Spain if you don't.

Chinese New Year in Madrid - Student Edition

The Chinese New Year, known in China as the Spring Festival, is the most important festivity of the traditional Chinese holidays. The celebrations take place in other countries of Eastern Oceania, but also in Chinese communities from all over the world.

image from here

After the traditional lunisolar calendar of the Chinese, in 2012 the first day of the New Year was the 23rd of January, the first day of the first lunar month. This a time of family reunion for the Chinese. Family members gather at each other's homes for visits and shared meals, most significantly a feast on New Year's Eve. The celebrations last for 15 days and represent the period with the most human migration of the world, also called the "spring movement". During these day, billions of people travel back to their place of origin in order to spend the celebrations together with their families.

At Chinese New Year celebrations people dress in traditional costumes, usually red or yellow. They also decorate their houses with poems on red paper and give children "lucky money" in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire, which according to legend can drive away bad luck. They also light fireworks, as tradition says that crackling flames drive away evil spirits. 

The 15th day of the celebrations represents The Lantern Festival. People hang glowing lanterns in temples, and carry lanterns to an evening parade under the light of the full moon. Some of the lanterns may be works of art, painted with birds, animals, flowers, zodiac signs, and scenes from legend and history. In many areas the highlight of the lantern festival is the dragon dance. The dragon is typically made of silk, paper, and bamboo. Traditionally the dragon is held aloft by young men who dance as they guide the colorful beast through the streets.

Each year is a different animal, as the legend says that Buddha called all animals, but only 12 showed before him: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig. This year represents The Year of Dragon, a symbol of treasure and wisdom. It also said that people who are born under the sign of the Dragon are innovative, brave and passionate.

You can find more info on these celebrations here, here or here.

image from here

In the Community of Madrid more than 46.000 Chinese people celebrate the beginning of the New Year, the entrance in the year 4710, leaving behind the Rabbit and welcoming the Dragon. The Chinese Spring Festival started in Madrid on the 23nd of January, with parades on the streets between Puerta del Sol and Plaza de España, where every year, there is a special fair for the Chinese New Year. Here, people bring their traditional products, like food, drinks, jewellery and many more. They share their traditions and culture with every person in Madrid open to it.

The celebrations were made possible with the help of the Minister of Immigration, Volunteering and Cooperation of the Community of Madrid and Chinese associations from Spain. Authorities from The City Council and The Chinese Embassy were present at the festivities. The Chinese community of Madrid is one of the largest foreign community in the city and it has grown in the past years. Also, the small businesses, especially nutrition shops, owned by the Chinese take an important part in maintaining a stable community here. China is one of the main countries who imports products in Spain, being, together with Germany, a country with negative export-import balance (source).

PHOTO GALLERY OF THE FAIR IN PLAZA DE ESPAÑA

(click on arrows to view fullscreen)

The president of The Nutrition Association of Chinese in Spain, Pedro Zhang said that with their actions they want to "bring good fortune to Spain" and "the necessary strength to come out of the crisis". Another Chinese woman, who was selling her products in Plaza de España also mentioned the importance of "selling fortune" to the country of Spain, because it doesn't find itself in a good place right now (source).

Another tradition the Chinese community has brought here in Madrid is choosing Miss China during the celebrations. If you want to see what it takes to bring home the title, you can find more about it here.

It seems like the Spanish people are very open to other cultures and traditions. Madrid is one of the cities with the higher concentration of foreigners in Spain and it can be seen that it respects the habits of others, wherever they come from. Not only they held place for such vast festivities with the coming of the Chinese New Year, but they also took part in it. The same way Spanish people like to make their culture and traditions known for everybody who comes visit, they also want to find out about everybody else's habits. The streets were full of locals who tasted the food, bought the products and took part in the festivities. Whether it's from curiosity, open-mindness or simply wanting to have fun, it is fair to say that what they showed during these celebrations is more than just tolerance. They accept you here and welcome you with your whole cultural baggage, wherever you're from. It is, indeed a multicultural city.

VIDEO FOOTAGE OF THE FAIR

(click on arrows to view fullscreen)

How about the Chinese students living here, in Madrid? For the first time, this year held place to a special Chinese celebration for the students at the Polytechnic University of Madrid. The Chinese Students Association of Madrid organized a festivity at The Superior Technical School of Industrial Engineering on the 20th of January. The objective of these celebrations was to strengthen and improve the intercultural communication between young people from the two countries. Wang, the organizer of the event, said the Chinese students "miss their families, and that is why we organized these festivities, so that they can feel the warmth of home and not forget our own culture and tradition". Zhang Mingming, a student from UPM declared that "Thanks to the Student Association of Madrid that organized this celebration of the New Year we no longer feel so lonely in Spain. We are very happy" (read more)

Right now, there are about one thousand Chinese students in the universities of Madrid, the total number of Chinese students in the country being multiplied by more than 10 in the last years. According to the data presented by the China Embassy in Spain, while in 2002 there were 500 Chinese students living in Spain, now that number has increased to 5.500.

Unfortunately, the distance between Spain and China is very big, the two countries being separated by 9.463 kilometres. So it's not that easy to travel back and forth in between the two. Not to mention the difference in calendars. The Chinese living in Europe can't afford to come back home and reunite with their families during the Spring Festival, because they do not have time off. 

Fortunately, Spain has been very open to its foreigners, including the Chinese. We met with 3 girls from China who are students in Madrid. One of them came here 2 and a half years ago and the other ones have been staying here for one year and a half. They shared their thoughts and experiences regarding the Chinese celebrations and traditions they had back home and also talked to us about how they feel here and how they celebrated the New Year in Madrid. What's the difference in a foreign country? What do they think of how it was celebrated in Madrid? Do they feel like they belong here?

If you want to see the full interviews, you can find them here: Esperanza, Liza and Zi-han.

© All photos and videos are property and copyright of Ioana Carp, unless mentioned otherwise.

Museo del Jamón

Presenting one of the most popular bars around Madrid. If you don't live here, it has to be your first destination for a caña (a typical small beer in Spain) so check it out!

Launching the video series of the blog

This is the first part of a series of short videos that will approach the themes of bars, cafés, clubs, drinks, tapas and more. For students of course! More to come. More interesting and more coherent, hopefully.

Nobody told me the tomatoes were bad

It’s going to happen in any country you go to. Whether you’re just one border away from home or continents away, you are going to miss the food you have been used to. It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or a vegan or a cannibal. You’ll find yourself asking: Dude, where's my food? Of course, unless you’re in some forgotten place in this world, you’ll manage to find basic ingredients for your favorite meals in the local supermarkets. But never all of them. Or the exact ones you’re looking for. Or the ones that taste like home. 

In Madrid I do miss some things from Romania, although I’m really not a big fan of traditional Romanian food. At first, it was hard enough to get by with the food by myself, thinking what I need and what goes were, what’s going to go bad in 2 days unless I freeze it and if I had to wash the rice or not. (Yeah, I didn’t know you have to wash the rice before cooking it. Now I do. Thank you, mom!) 

I had to use my memory and my imagination so I could adapt to grocery-shopping and cooking for one. So I failed at first, but got a bit better with time. I’m still not experimenting very local meals or ingredients, but at least I know what’s good and what’s not and what gets me through the week. Turkey is very popular, but chicken liver – not so much. I see sweets everywhere and people seem to like doughnuts very much – one of their traditional desserts is churros con chocolate and there is a Dunkin’ Coffee at every street corner. I know that the oranges and tangerines are very sweet and tasty, that you can find all types of lint around here and that there is almost no normal yogurt or good, simple, unsweetened drinkable dairy. I also know that 2 Thai chilies are too much for one meal. 

And that the tomatoes here are bad.

Walk the walk in Madrid, Part 1

The best way to get to know a city when you have just moved there is to simply walk its streets. And walk, and walk and walk. That is what I did in Madrid in my first weeks. Actually, I'm still doing it now, as I hardly got to know the whole city. With Lonely Planet in my bag, I started exploring from the start. In between apartment hunting, I liked to take the spirit of the city in and get lost on its streets. But you know, the getting-lost-with-a-map type of thing, we have to be somewhat organized, right?

Right. There is a lot of advice considering where to walk and what to visit in Madrid, as it is indisputably a very large city, with so many things to do. No matter where you are, when you know you're going to spend a few months, a year or more in that city, there's no rush. You have time to do your walking any way you want to. But you should definitely do it. For the very least, just so you could go back home and be able to answer questions from people who were visiting it just for a week but now seem like they're tour guides or something. Yes, those annoying know-it-all, we've all met them. And most importantly, it's free. So go walk the walks!

My first walk in my first day was a short one in the Retiro Park, as I was living quite close. Then it all depended on what neighborhood I was in while searching for a place to live. I walked up and down on the streets of La Latina, a very special, colourful place, I sat in the very pretty Tirso de Molina Plaza, until I realised I was right next to a bunch of drunk homeless people (but they were peaceful so no worries) and I walked the streets of Las Huertas neighborhood, which might be my favourite part of Madrid, especially when it comes to getting lost in the city by foot. You can explore these three areas in one day and be sure to cross paths with many beauties you wouldn't have thought of, beauties that always have a madrilenian story to tell.

To be continued!

Housing in Madrid

I could write an entire book on this subject, honestly. I knew it was going to be difficult, especially considering that I had never looked for a place to live in my life. I imagined that being in a new city, in a different country might be a problem. Little did I know.

Maybe it was my fault too, but I never thought that I had to see more than 25 places to find just one. I was looking for a room in a shared apartment preferably with people my age, central and quite reasonable (although the prices in Madrid don't seem reasonable at all). First, I started looking on one website dedicated to housing, then it became 2 websites, then 4. Not only that, but I posted ads on 3 websites as well. I have seen all kinds of places and people, including 50-year-olds who received me in their underwear and seemed to have a shrine of students' rooms surrounding their bedroom aka the living room. I had got all kinds of phone calls, including from Romanian women who were living with their daughters on the outskirts of Madrid and who liked telling me their whole life on the phone. It was an interesting experience, indeed.

Finally, after a 2-week search, I managed to find a room, which is very central and within my budget. Fourth floor with no elevator,  my room has no light and no heating, the flat has no living room or common space and bugs are sometimes crawling in the kitchen, but I guess I'm lucky, right? And the only reason I got it was because I was there first and said "I want it".

Anyway, I can now say I have a little bit of experience in house-searching. In this city, at least. So here are my tips for you:

• Start looking early and save your finds. Contact the owners as soon as possible and try to be the first who sees the room.
• Use all the sites you can. In Madrid, I recommend: idealista, loquo, segundamano and  pisocompartido in this order.
• Post ads saying very clearly what you're looking for. No matter how clearly you're going to say it, you will still get any kind of calls that have nothing to with what you're looking for, but try your luck. I posted ads on idealista, loquo and pisocompartido.
• Try to find other people who are also looking for the same thing so you could get a whole apartament together. You can find them on sites like idealista, if you have no other option.
• In Spain, your chances are highly increased if you speak the language.
• Obviously, have your eyes wide open when you're seeing the place. If there's something you don't like from the start, don't try to convince yourself, you won't like it ever. Ask as many questions as you can.
• If the people already living there are the ones who decide who is going to stay, try to be as friendly as possible. It's like a job interview. I got a few rejections from places I really liked and let me tell you, it can get very depressing.
• Don't lose hope!

Hope it helped. If you have any other advice, do share!

By the way, is anyone looking for a flatmate?

Couchsurfing

It was a few years ago when I first met with the concept of "couchsurfing", through some friends of a friend. All I got back then was that it meant people from all around the world could 'surf' others' couches from anywhere in the world, without any kind of material obligation. "Interesting" I thought, but that was kind of it. It took me a few years to learn more about this community and to be a part of it, in the end. But once I figured out what it was about, I was hooked.

Before I came to Madrid I was desperately looking for a solution to spend my first days in this completely new city where I didn't know anybody. It seemed almost impossible to be able to find a place to stay without being here. But I found the solution with the help of Couchsurfing. This online community is organized by countries and cities and different themes. So I was lucky enough to find something in a group that was called "Madrid: Renting Rooms" (link). Not only I could secure my first week there, as a member sublet me his room while he was on vacation, but I also got to make friends with his roommate. She was the first person I met in Madrid and it was neither my choice or hers. But somehow, we instantly became friends and I couldn't believe how lucky I was to be in such good company only a week in this new city. It is always good to get to know people who already live in the city you're moving to, so they can give you all the tips and advice you need, as locals. And it's even better when these people turn out to be actual friends.

So my point is you should all check their site, it's a non-profit organization and it has been absolutely great for me. It can help you find places to live, places to go to, things to do, but most importantly, you can meet amazing people from all around the world.