Take the Solo Trip

I’m Morgan a senior economics major at the University of Louisville and had the chance to spend my Spring 2016 semester in Bordeaux, France. I was abroad for 5 months with one of my closest friends from Louisville attending school in Spain. This was my first major trip that I had embarked on ‘alone’ or without someone that I know booking a plane ticket with me. Of course you do get a little nervous and come up with all the irrational ‘what-if’ scenarios, but once you take the plunge and go ahead on your own journey it is worth it a million times over.

I got to Bordeaux and was getting aquatinted with all of the study abroad students and making friends, we planned random weekend trips and scheduled our school breaks together, so I was rarely alone in my actual travels. Until my roommate decided to leave 4 months early and I found myself then living alone in a foreign city. Shortly after that small crisis, I realized that my visa for my stay in Europe was actually invalid due to inaccurate dates that were placed on it. (People take it from me, triple check that thing before hopping on a plane.) After a solid two weeks of feeling like I had maybe made a mistake in thinking I could conquer this entire semester abroad on my own, I regained the confidence I needed when I decided to venture to Madrid by myself.

I had to travel out to Madrid to get my visa validated by a French consulate outside of France, so I booked a round trip bus ticket and found myself heading south of Bordeaux during a much needed long weekend. At first I tried to get friends on my study abroad to join me and ease this fear that I would be lonely, but everyone had already booked other trips and this was my only free weekend so I decided to do it alone. I wasn’t just going to travel to Madrid for paperwork though; I was going to enjoy getting to know the Spanish way of life.

I spent four days in Madrid by myself, walking around the city, making friends at hostels, eating lunch alone, getting tapas with new found friends and exploring all the sites that Madrid had to offer. I imagined that my weekend would be spent walking around alone and me constantly staring at my phone to avoid the fact that it was just me at the dinner table, but what I found was making friends is so much easier than you would ever imagine and travelling alone is even enjoyable. I made friends where I was staying and most of them were also travelling alone, so it was nice to have companionship for a night out and people to grab brunch with in the daylight hours. It was also nice, however, to go walk around the city by myself and have coffee at a café without staring at my phone the whole time and soaking up the experience around me.

At least once during your study abroad adventure you’ll find that all of your newfound friends are busy one weekend, or are venturing out to places you might not be super interested in, and I highly recommend you take that time to go explore somewhere new on your own, even if it’s just a short train or bus ride away.

Hala Madrid!

If football is religion in Europe, then Real Madrid is the Vatican! Anyone who is in Madrid during a match will quickly learn that the entire city comes to a complete stand still for 90 minutes. Everyone either gathers in their homes, local bars, or makes their pilgrimage to the Santiago Bernabeu (Real Madrid’s Stadium). Football fans also know that Champions League football is special as it is the competition that brings the best football clubs throughout Europe into one tournament.

On this faithful night Real Madrid was playing Sporting Lisbon (the champions of the Portuguese League last season), in their opening match of the Champions League. As we got onto the metro to the stadium we were greeted by thousands of other supporters chanting Real Madrid’s famous chant “Hala Madrid”. Once we finally got to the stadium we spent about 30 minutes just getting into the stadium so I would highly recommend anyone going leave at least two hours before the match to guarantee you do not miss anything. Additionally, Champions League tickets are a little harder to find then a regular season game, because everyone wants them. That is why we paid a little extra (around 100 Euros) to get tickets through a company who purchases a lot of tickets from the club directly as soon as they go on sale to the public so that we were assured to get valid tickets.

Walking up the stairs to our seats had my heart pumping a hundred miles per hour. The inside of the stadium was beautiful! There is not a single bad seat in the entire stadium. We got to our seats about 45 minutes before the game, but we were entertained by the players warming up and all the prematch rituals that only happen for Champions League games. (Again another reason I highly recommend going to a Champions League match.) In addition, was the starting line announcements with the likes of Christiano Ronaldo, Garreth Bale, and Sergio Ramos, the greatest players in the world!

When the match finally started it was incredible! The first half saw Real Madrid stringing passes together all over the pitch only to just finally just miss the crucial pass right at the end. While Sporting was playing a counterattacking kind of game, where they would defend deep until they could regain possession and then would quickly break on the Real Madrid defense. Sporting actually came the closest in the first half as they hit the crossbar right before halftime. The half finished 0-0, but both teams looked like they had goals in them.

The second half was when the goals finally came flying in. Sporting scored first, within 5 minutes into the second half with Real Madrid’s defense made a crucial mistake and the ball fell to Sportings striker, who scored with a very simple shot put Sporting up 1-0. Real Madrid kept pushing for an equalizer, but just could not get the ball in the back of the net. That was until the dying minutes of the game. With 5 minutes left in the match Real Madrid won a free-kick just outside the box. Ronaldo with his trademark free-kick rocketed the shot over the wall and into the top corner to tie the game at one apiece. The stadium went absolutely mad! For a good portion of the game it looked as if Real was going to lose, and then the best player in the world showed his world class! The match was not finished there however. With 4 minutes of added time Real was not looking to just get a draw, they wanted to win, and they pushed everyone into the attack. With 10 seconds left in the match Real Madrid’s winger whips in a cross from out wide and up rose Morata (Real Madrid’s substitute striker) and headed in the winner! Literally the last touch of the ball was the winner. The stadium erupted as everyone in the stands (including us) completely lost our minds and were going crazy.

2-1 Real Madrid, Champions League night at the Santiago Bernabeu! The type of thing football fans dream of and we got to experience it!

Hala Madrid!