Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)

I came to Spain fed up with six years of trying to learn Spanish in a class room setting. Madrid´s aggressive social atmosphere and congenial character of the few natives I befriended right off provided the perfect setting to hone my conversational skills. As far as I have come in the last four months, I look forward to overcoming remaining language barriers by the end of my stay in July. Upon my return, I will continue to pursue fluency in Spanish and daily practice using the language.

I did stay in University dorms for a month while I searched for an ideal apartment. In my experiences there, I did not find the sense of community I was looking for, nor the highest quality of space and location. This realization served to further encourage my patience for my ideal apartment to show itself after three weeks of dogged research and "pavement pounding."

Travel as much as you can - within spain and the rest of Europe and socialize and go out as much as possible.