Important facts for students who want to go on exchange to Zaragoza

Time for a new post! This time we thought we should give you some facts about studying and living here!

General things about Zaragoza

Pronunciation:

It's called [θaɾaˈɣoθa], something like "Tha-ra---gó-tha" (third syllable is stressed). Spaniards will easily identify foreigners by the wrong pronunciation (with an 'hard' S).

Map:

Here you can find a small map of Zaragoza with the most important places indicated.

Click on the picture to get a better resolution or open the picture in a new tab!

We highly recommend to live in the blue area! It’s near Campus San Francisco, as well as near to Campus Gran Vía. We both live in this region; read on if you want to know why! ;)

Prices:
The prices for food here are similar to those ones in the Netherlands and sometimes even less. However, in most of the stores (e.g. Simply, Mercadona etc.) you will find maaaaaany discounts, for instance two Bocadillas (baguettes) for the price of one, or three packages of tuna for the price of two and so on. It’s definitely worth to have a proper look! Regarding soft drinks and beer, it's also very similar. Hard liquor (vodka, rum, ...) is definitely way cheaper (you can get it for €5), as well as wine (including sangria).

Metro:
The metro here is amazing! It costs around €1.35 for one ride and you can go as far as you want. Additionally, there is only one metro line, meaning you can't get lost, the only problem would be choosing the wrong direction ;). 

Walking distance & taxis:
When you live in the blue area we spoke about before everything can be reached by walking (Dawe usually walks everywhere, except when we have to go to Campus Rio Ebro). Coming from the club, we usually take a taxi, which is way, way cheaper here compared to the Netherlands (starts by €2.20 and costs around €5, meaning with 4 people you won't pay more than €2 each!).

Internationality and multi-culture:
Here, you will find a lot of - surprise! - Spanish people coming from all over Spain to study here. Moreover, we have the feeling that the Italians are taking over, same with French people (in Marie's apartment live 4 Italians and 2 French!!) Dawe found some Polish people but very few. There are almost no Germans, only a handful of Dutch students and almost no Chinese ones. We think that's great because you are forced to speak Spanish (check also the section below).

Water:
It's possible to drink the water but we would not recommend it! It's enriched with chlorine! You will immediately smell it (smells like you would be in a swimming pool). Therefore, buy the little more expensive shower gels to try to counteract the chlorine (the Spaniards are using the very cheap ones, which will dry out your skin). Attention chicas: Unfortunately, your hair will definitely get strawy and fuzzy! (SO ANNOYING!)

Universidad de Zaragoza

Finally speaking about the university! As the entire blog is somehow connected to our university life, we want to cover one very important aspect, namely the subjects! Some of them are really easy for the ones who studied at Stenden; those ones are usually connected to marketing, research, and other subjects that require discussions, argumentations and writing reports. You will easily dominate in the class, as you are used to take statements from others, analyse them and argument in favour of them or come up with counterarguments! However, the classes that require mathematics, such as macro- and microeconomics, statistics and financial valuations will give you a hard time! The students here are used to calculate all the time. Mental math seems easy for them, as well as written math. For instance, we both took statistics (even in Spanish) and it's hard to follow formulas and so on. Additionally, these subjects take an in-depth approach. For us, this means that we will have to study a lot at home to catch up. Besides that, all subjects are on a very theoretical and abstract level. However, usually you have one lecture about the theory and one practical class per subject per week.

Cierzo

Cierzo, oh cierzo! You wonder what's meant with that? The WIND!!! Yes, it's freaking windy here! And yes, the wind has its own name!! The wind comes over the mountains and reaches top speed in the valleys, meaning Zaragoza. For instance, Dawe had never problems with his skin but after two/three weeks, his face suddenly dried out and he had to go to the pharmacy to buy a facial creme to, first, treat it and, secondly, prevent it from happening again! Continuing, el cierzo exists here all the year, no matter if winter or summer, spring or autumn! Be prepared!

Clothing

As already mentioned, the wind here was very strong in February. The first days in March were very sunny and the wind settled a bit; however, we still think that it will get a little bit worse. Therefore, you will definitely need some pair of jeans, a jacket, and it would be even wise to bring gloves and a scarf if you get cold easily.

Learning Spanish

We have a friend living in Barcelona, who also started studying in February. We compared our Spanish level to hers and we can definitely say that if you want to learn Spanish, go to Zaragoza! Of course, here you will find a lot of Erasmus students, too, but most of them (meaning the French and Italian people) do not speak English or, if they do, then they do it very poorly! Moreover, we highly recommend to live with Spaniards; you will quickly pick up the language (as you are forced to) without putting much effort into it. Shop owners, people in the supermarkets and other people you will encounter in the streets usually do NOT speak English (not like Barcelona where they usually speak English/German etc.) ! However, most of them are very, very friendly and will take the time to listen to you (Dawe remembers a situation where he wanted to buy an envelope and stamps but had no clue how to translate it. Of course, it took some time (correos (letters) was the only word related to this situation he knew) but he got help from several people he just approached on the street). In Barcelona, the people seemed to be more stressed and like they didn't want to help you. We think that is because of the many tourists in the city, they are very annoyed and unlike here where only a few tourists exists; everyone is friendly and helpful. In general, you can ask them if they could repeat their sentence in a slower way ("Puedes repertir pero ahora más despacio?") and they will. We also are convinced that in other cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia) we would not speak as much Spanish as we are doing right now!

Flat hunting

Our coordinator from Stenden, Mrs Sanchez Carrascal, recommended to book a hostel for the first days and to just go out and search for a flat when we arrive in Zaragoza. Following her advice, we guess it was the best thing to do! The prices for the rooms are usually in the same range of €200 to €250 (Of course, you will also find flats for €180 or €300) and do not differ very much! Therefore: check out your flatmates!!!! Both of us are living with people who speak the entire day Spanish, which helps us a lot to improve our language skills! And we want to stress that this is the most important aspect! We also encountered some flats where the people were already working (meaning never at home) or all of them chilled in their room - a no-go for both of us! For instance, while writing this post Dawe chilled all the time in the living room, where one of his flatmates was eating, another one was watching TV and surfing the web and the third one was doing homework. It's all about the atmosphere! You need to feel welcomed and you want to be able to speak Spanish during the day, these are the most important aspects.

Fun facts

• Red lights: It's common here to go over the street with just looking left/right/left, no matter what the traffic lights are showing!
• Botellones y fiestas: Pre-drinking starts at 10/11 at a flat, you go to the club at 1/2 and you won't come back earlier than 4/5 (or even 7.30 am like Marie's flatmates) ! Will take some time for Dutch people to get used to it ;)

If you want to know more, just let us know in the comment section below!

Oficial students of University of Zaragoza!

The third week has started and we finally seem to get into a routine. Moreover, we are now officially matriculated and have chosen our final subjects, yaaaay! However, we are still not able to access all our subjects on Blackboard (here called Moodle); only one is accessible, which makes life a little harder. Especially, when you need to hand in assignments or make presentations and you do not even have the most basic information about it. Moreover, nobody showed us how to use the Blackboard or the email account and Marie remembers that at Stenden she did an introduction to Blackboard and all that with the new Erasmus students....ANYWAY we managed to do so, but it would be nice if there was a little help sometimes, but so far we are doing well! Also, we must correct one of our statements, as we mentioned that Spanish people tend to be a little slow...Our Spanish statistics teacher is very fast!!! The exercises are not difficult, but she simply runs through them and it is difficult to keep up, especially as it is in Spanish.... Usually she talks for 20 minutes, "Preguntas? No? Vale!" and then she goes on... meaning, if you sleep for 2 minutes, you won't be able to catch up! But she is very nice, we introduced us to her and she told us about extra tutor hours twice a week, which is a great opportunity, as we have our first test coming up soon. We will make use of it next week, as this week we still have our Curso Intensivo de Español.

Here are some photos from our university...

Hallway

Typical class rooms, projector for PPTs, blackboards for additional information

Enjoying the sun ;)

Before the weekend started, we gathered at Marie's place to have some drinks and to go out afterwards. The Spanish people definitely know how to party, they start late and finish even later... Meaning, we start pre-drinking at 10/11, go to the club at 1/2 and come home at 4/5/6. The typical drink here before going out is Sangria, occasionally beer or other mix drinks, but Sangria seems to be the favorite of everyone (also because it is really cheap!) (Comment by Dawe: That counts usually for all Erasmus students; the Spaniards as flatmates prefer Ambar (beer from Zaragoza) and hard liquor, whereby the chicas living one level beneath use to drink wine)

On the weekend, we did another trip to IKEA and the shopping centre, together with 5 roommates from Marie. It was like a small family trip and in total we spend 6 hours there. In the end, we were all exhausted and were looking to come home!

(PS: In the shopping centre, there is a NIKE FACTORY!!!! YES!! Marie and Dawe (especially Dawe *lol*) spent like over an hour in there and bought new shoes (and Dawe a running shirt)... Shoes €75 reduced to €52 minus 30%, Running Shirt €20 minus 50%, totalling up to around €46... We are definitely going back there to check out new collections. Dawe: "I'm not gonna leave this country without buying at least 4 new pairs of shoes!")

Somehow this picture seems familiar... ;)

On Sunday, Marie's roommates gathered again in the living room and they spend most of the day together, talking about the weekend, what everybody had been up to, watching tv and just relaxing. In the evening they ordered Chinese food and watched a movie together. 

On Wednesday we have an exam from our intensive Spanish course, thus we wanted to spend most of the days preparing for the test; however, unfortunately we had so much homework to do that we couldn't prepare anything. However, we still ended up with 59% (Dawe) and 54% (Marie), which is pretty good! So far the course has been really great, our group is very nice and it is INTENSE. We learn a lot every day, but we are also looking forward to finish it and maybe use the time to have a look around the city and other great places around here.... 

... or doing some other activities like chilling ;)

The second week in Zaragoza...

Weekend is over and a new week has begun! On Thursday we joined the Carnival and we had lots of fun. Everyone got dressed up and we had a good time :) We both went out with the people from our flats....

Duck faces everywhere ;)

Los estudiantes de Erasmus

At the cupiteria (shots-bar)

On Friday, Dawe's aunt and uncle arrived and we went to IKEA on Saturday to finally get all the missing items for our rooms. It was a relatively quick trip, as we had already made a list with all the things that we needed. Marie had to get quite a lot of things, as her room was missing some essential items, like a mirror, a chair and so on....

"Can I take good selfies with this mirror?"

IKEA with two women.... exhausting

In the end, we also passed by the beloved Lidl and got some really nice things from the supermarket for our fridges and cupboards! Saturday evening we had some tapas with Dawe's aunt and uncle, which were a good end for a successful day. We have to mention that it was Saint Valentine's day and the city was closed for traffic; hence we had the plan to eat in the neighbourhood of Dawe. However, it's mainly occupied by students; therefore, there were no 'real' restaurants and we had to go for a tapas bar. We chose some delicious dishes but before they could have been served, the staff first had to go to a supermarket to buy the things!! Unbelievable in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, but pretty common in Spain.

Selfies work ;)

Sunday was a typical chill day; Marie spent it with all her roommates and we managed to fit 15 people in the living room, watching TV, talking, laughing and having a good time. Just like a big family. Marie feels a lot better now and very welcomed here. She didn't imagine staying here would be as fun, but it is amazing. They ordered pizza for everyone, which took 2 hours in order to deliver 10 pizzas. Finally at 0.00am the food arrived and they could eat. She's starting to get used to the late dinner hours in Spain..... While eating, one of the Italian girls found a cockroach in the kitchen, thus after dinner it was time to clean out the entire kitchen, clean every single corner, disinfect and close all the possible holes where any insects could come through. At 2am she finally went to sleep and hoped that no more cockroaches would find their way in our kitchen.....

Regarding Dawe's place, two of his flatmates already arrived! This means that it's finally time to start speaking Spanish the entire time and to improve! Learning by doing ;)

By the way, it's finally getting warmer and warmer!

At the end of this week we will finally get officially matriculated as students of the university of Zaragoza. Thus, we'll receive another new email address AND most importantly access to the Internet at the university. Well, let's see how the second week at uni will go...

Dieter meint... (translated: Dieter means...)

Not long after we arrived in Zaragoza, we made a new friend called Dieter :)

Dieter comes from Germany and seems to have been all over the world!! He has met many, many, many people throughout the years. We even bumped into him in Leeuwarden, but now he is in Spain and attends the same classes as we do! Sometimes his presence is a little bit rarer than in other times but he never misses classes!!!!

Dieter is a true friend; he seems to know everything has a very high opinion. He is an expert in subjects with numbers (Microeconomics, Statistics, ...), as he can find solutions easily. Unfortunately, Dieter is not very active outside of class and only feels comfortable around Spanish people.

We hope our journey continues with Dieter, as it has been so much fun with him!

Dieter, mi corazón, enjoy your time in Spain and see you in the next class!

'determine' --> 'Dieter meint'
pronunciation: Dieter-mind

Top 8: Highlights of the first week

Here we are again! In this post we would like to present you our Top 8 regarding highlights of the English language. By the way, big ups to Stenden (and especially Joanna, our English Business Communication teacher) for teaching us English!! Despite some other Erasmus students, we are definitely equipped with the highest level of English in our entire classes.

1. Dieter meint!!! (see next post if you don't speak German ;))
2. Eh-Spain (putting the 'E' from España before Spain)
3. "We have the responsibilidad!"
4. Speaking sooooo slowly! --> needing 3 weeks for 20 slides (mostly due to number 7, see below)
5. PLEASE! Look at me! What is your name? Repeat!
6. Suhpplie (meaning supply ;))
7. Eeeeeehhhhh
8. "Economics is think"

The first week at university...

A couple of days since our last post have passed and many things have happened! During the past weekend, we finally moved into our apartments with our new flatmates. Dawe lives with two Spanish guys and an Italian one, while Marie moved into the ESN apartment with 14 (!!!!) other students. While it is always busy and loud in Marie's apartment, Dawe's one seems to be quiet - for now! His flatmates just finished their exam phase and, unfortunately, are all on vacation; meaning the first days he was alone. However, this isn't a problem, as the Erasmus student are really, really friendly and he could stay there, avoiding an awkward feeling of being completely alone ;)

Back to our story... The first night went well and on Monday our first day at university started. Thankfully, the university has at the beginning of every semester an introduction day, where every subject begins with a lecture in which the most important aspects about the subjects are explained (syllabus, evaluation/assessment etc.). This way the students know what is expected from then, as well as if they need to write a special assignment, when the examen will take place and how they will look like. Our first lecture was at 9am, but - of course - the teacher did not turn up. 'Typically Spanish' was our first thought! The rest of the day went without problems, while our brains were overloaded with all sorts of information in Spanish and English. The Spanish students did not talk to us, they seemed a little bit scared and just looked at us like we were not from this planet (and yes, we took a shower and dressed up in our nicest clothes). On Monday also our intensive language course started, however our last lecture went from 5pm to 7pm, so we didn't manage to participate on the first day. The woman told us to come back the next day. We went home tired and exhausted and in the evening Marie visited "el Tandem", which is like the language lounge in Leeuwarden. Students meet in a bar to speak Spanish, while drinking uno o dos cervezas. Of course, the purpose is (besides practising languages) to meet new students (there was a 'traffic light party'; green = you're single, red = you're taken; yellow = you can't decide). It was a great evening, the bar was filled and Marie met some new students. We hope that one day, the language lounge in Leeuwarden will be just as busy and successful as in Zaragoza. 

Marie y las chicas de Erasmus

The next day, we continued to visit lectures and soon realized that we wanted to keep our subjects but switch some of them from Spanish to English. The main reason was the assessment; some subjects require active participation during all classes and, as we want to continue achieving high grades, we thought that it'll be quite difficult in some cases. Thus, Marie went through the timetable again (comment of Dawe: THOUSAND THANKS FOR BEING SO F*CKING ORGANISED, MARIE!! You definitely are an life-saver!!!) and looked for the suitable subject combination, as we take classes from different years and there are some clashes. In Spain, they have two different kinds of classes: first, there are lectures, in which mostly the teacher is talking and explaining the theory, and, secondly, practice classes, in which the students are actively participating in discussions and doing exercises to apply the freshly learned theory.

Fortunately, we received the message that we can drop one subject (meaning more time to party, errrrr, being an Erasmus student), as we participate in the intensive language course. On Tuesday, we finally managed to go to the course, which is everyday from 5pm to 8pm!!! In the case of Dawe,
every day he has 3 hours of Spanish, adding two 25min-walks and approximately 60 to 90min of making homework; this adds up to 5-6h every day, which are spent on the course.... yeah, it's 'intensive'! However, first we were put in the highest class, but we soon realized that they talked about things we didn't want to learn about and that we wanted to switch classes. This happened due to the fact that we are both very confident in writing/reading but less competent in speaking. Additionally, most of the students had over 5 years of Spanish (compared to us that's two or three times that much). Hence, now we are in a class lower, but they focus more on speaking as well as vocabulary and it is more fun than in the other class. On Thursday we had our workshop for Economic History and World Economy, which we enjoyed a lot, after the class we also talked to some of the students, which showed us later the Photocopy office at the university, where you can get all the slides, information, papers printed that you need for school for a couple of cents. VERY VERY HANDY!! (*looking over to Stenden*... you need that, too ;))

On the weekend, Dawe's aunt is coming to Zaragoza and we will head to IKEA in order to get some things for our rooms. Finally, it won't be all white walls!

Tonight it is carnival party at the local club and all Erasmus students are invited; well, let's wait and see, which costumes we will come up with.....

Siempre, siempre bocadillos....

On Thursday 5th of February we had our appointment with Mrs Chus Tena, the representative of the Faculty of Economics; or more specific: the lady of the international relations office. We walked to the campus and asked for directions to the room, and as it turned out we were in the right office but at the wrong campus! However, the man was very friendly, called Chus (after some problems with the pronunciation of her name) and gave us a map of the campus. Chus looked over our Learning Agreement, our subjects we had chosen so far and told us about the language course that we would already start on Monday! We definitely wanted to participate, so she printed all the forms for us, scanned them and we could send them to the office the same day. She also showed us where to find the time tables and the academic calendar.
Muchas gracias Chus (we already took her into our hearts)!

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the ESN Zaragoza presentation, which was scheduled for 7pm at the Campus San Francisco. The room was filled with students when we arrived and we received information about trips, visits, language courses, parties and everything a little Erasmus student needs to know. The presentation was short and dinner was scheduled for 10pm at Matarraña, a restaurant in the city. Dawe looked up the restaurant, as well as the address and ensured me he knew where to go. This time we left the hotel early in order to be one of the firsts at the restaurant to get proper seats. When we arrived at the place we already wondered why nobody else was there and how everybody could fit into this small restaurant. After another tour around the block, we decided to go in and ask where everybody was, and as it turned out the restaurant had two locations in Zaragoza. Well, so we hopped back on the tram and arrived at the right place at 10.15pm. The place was packed! But we learned our lesson (or at least I, Dawe, did): always double-check where you have to go!

Get-to-know-dinner with the other Erasmus students

First, we couldn't even find one free seat, but in the end we managed to sit at one of the tables, next to one Italian and three South Korean students. All of them couldn't speak much English, thus we had to speak Spanish. Soon we discovered that the Italian girl was one of Marie's new flatmates. Dinner was (like always!!) a bocadillo (meaning a sandwich).....thankfully we had some Sangria and Cerveza with it. We finished eating and decided to head towards the club "Kenbo", which is new in the city and opened only for Erasmus students that night. Unfortunately, it took us 30 minutes to find the club (while it was only a 5 minutes walk) and then it wasn't even open yet. Esperamos/Waiting....at 1am the doors finally opened and inside everything was still new. The club filled quickly, the music was good, the drinks were expensive and we had a good time.

Having fun while going home

The next morning (Friday) we had to get up very, very, veeeery early in order to go to the office of the language course to check if they received all our documents. Fortunately, the women just read our emails and ensured us we received a place for the first language course, which starts already on Monday! Three weeks of curso intensive (meaning everyday three hours of Spanish lessons and one additional hour to finish homework)..... Afterwards, we had a small introduction meeting with Chus at the Campus Rio Ebro, which is around 25 minutes away from the centre (by metro). In the afternoon, we finally met Marie's buddy Jose, who turned out to be very nice and he showed us a great tapas place. We had a good chat, some food (of course in form of bocadillos) and said we would meet again the upcoming days.

Tapas, bocadillos and chips (yes, the Spaniards put Oreos in a bun... )

Today, Marie received her keys for her apartment/room and we dropped off some of our luggage as we are moving tomorrow in our apartments. We shortly stayed at the place and already met 8 of her 14 roommates, who all turned out to be very open and welcoming. *HAPPY DAYS*

Living room of Marie's flat

Tonight we are going back to her place in order to have dinner with everyone, some drinks and later going out with the people to.... have a guess... Kenbo (again)!! Let's see how the night turns out...

By the way, it seems like the hotel became some kind of fun house. The Spanish people seem to be very 'active' during the night time... and day time... and, basically, any time of the day..