Learning Spanish in Barcelona - with Metrocultura Language School

It feels like forever ago that a friend and me decided to do a spanish language course in Barcelona. At that time we were studying Spanish as our second foreign language at our college in Munich. We wanted to go to Spain to deepen our knowledge and we also sneakily kept in mind that students, who are doing an educational trip, were getting the last two weeks of the semester off. I’m not gonna lie, that was right up our alley ;)

Where exactly in Spain we wanted to go, was decided very quickly. Although we also had Malaga and Madrid in mind for our trip, Barcelona made the race in the end. Barcelona was calling for us and we obeyed ;). We asked our teachers for help to decide on a language school because there are soooo many out there, it’s hard to decide. They told us to go with the Tandem Language School in Spain, who have a small school in Barcelona called Tandem Metrocultura Barcelona.

http://www.metrocultura.de/index-e.html

Prices

We decided to do a 2-week language course in July. We chose the option to be accommodated with a spanish hostfamily.

Language Course: 280 € *

Accommodation: 220 € *

Naturally these prices do not include the return flight to Barcelona. Flying from Munich, you can usually snag a flight for more or less 100€. Of course prices differ depending from where you fly.

*the prices quoted are the amount that we paid back in 2008, they can vary from the prices you pay today, simply check it out on their website

Living with a spanish hostfamily

We were accommodated with a very lovely eldery Señora. She had a tiny guest room in her tiny tiny flat on the first floor of a typically spanish apartment building. Tiny front door, tiny staircase, tiny balconies. We shared the kitchen and the bathroom with her. Our hostess didn’t speak English at all, so we were forced to give our best at speaking Spanish. It was quite challenging since she was very talkative and we were only spanish beginners at that time. But communicating somehow worked anyway. 

It was at our hostesse’s flat that we learned that in Spain it is completely normal to visit your neighbours unannounced and just sit down in front of the TV with them. It was a frequent occourence that a stranger would sit on the couch in the living room, greeting us very friendly and we only thought: who the hell is that??? None of the casually visiting neighbours ever wondered who we were and what we were doing here. The Spanish simply are a very open, friendly and social people.

If you don’t like to live with a hostfamily though, the language school also offers the option to accommodate you in a flat that you share with several other language students. That might be a good option if you are travelling and studying alone. You automatically meet people who are here because of the same reason you are. You might make some new friends. We only chose to live with a hostfamily since it was the cheaper option.

The language course

At the beginning of the course everybody has to take a small assessment test. Depending on your results the teachers decide on which language level you are and put you in the according class. There are classes for Beginners up to classes for Advanced spanish speakers.

Classes are held mondays to fridays from 09:00 am to 12:15 am. At 11:00 am there is a short lunch break, during which you can test your spanish in the bakery around the corner, if you didn’t bring a small lunch yourself already. „Un bocadillo con queso por favor.“ was my go-to sentence everyday at 11:00 am. ;)

The class I we were in had 6 students including us and we had two alternate teachers. Classes with such a small amount of students are quite effective because they are so interactive. Everybody gets plenty of chances to speak. The atmosphere in class is very relaxed and friendly. Learning spanish in this environment was really fun!  We were also given work sheets to work with and from time to time we were given a little bit of homework. But spanish homework in Barcelona is best done at the beach with a Caipirinha in hand ;).

Besides having fun in class, we also had a lot of fun with the fellow students we were in class with. They were about our age and we got along so well, we even met up with each other after class. Most of the time, we all lay at the beach together and in the evenings we would go to Bars or go clubbing. A great possibility to meet new people are the cultural guided tours through the city, hosted by the staff of the language school once a week. So, even if you are travelling alone, you always get plenty of chances to meet people.

My conclusion

Due to the fact that most teachers hardly speak english (some do speak it very well though), you kind of have to take the leap and jump in at the deep end and actually speak spanish. Since we weren’t complete beginners anymore, I kind of liked that challenge! If you are a beginner though, don’t worry, there is always someone to speak english to if there is something important to discuss or if you need any help. But nevertheless, in class the main language is spanish! Even if you only know basic spanish you will discover that you really are able to communicate and that your language skills improve considerably over the time oft he course! I noticed that I was getting a lot more fluent after just one week! I actually would have like to stay longer than two weeks, but my budget back then didn’t allow it. To really improve your language skills, I recommend a four-week course. Even longer if you can afford it!

After two weeks in Barcelona, I was in such a spanish speaking flow, I even accidentally thanked the cashier at the grocery store back in Germany with a „Vale, gracias!“ instead of „Danke“.^^

Hasta luego mi amigos!

Did you ever do a language course abroad?

Tell me all about it in the comments :)

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ROME: Visiting the COLOSSEUM & ROMAN FORUM

The Colosseum was the one cultural sight I was most looking forward to visiting. And I was not disappointed. I can tell you, I was pretty swept away by it's monstrosity, but also it's beauty. It really is breathtaking!

VISIT THE COLOSSEUM

What time of day should I visit the Colosseum?

• In the morning! Definitely! Go there as soon as it opens, which is at 8:30 am. The queues are a lot shorter! Also the sun isn't as hot as it is in the afternoon. ;)

Where should I buy the tickets?

• We saw the sheer endless queues for the Colosseum as well as for the Roman Forum the day before we went and decided that we didn't want to waste our time waiting in line for 2 hours. So we bought our tickets online the night before. On the day we went, we arrived at the Colosseum at about 9:00 am and found that the line for visitors without tickets was actually shorter than the one for visitors with pre-booked tickets. Oh well, so we stood in line with the other pre-bookers. It was only later that we discovered that the two lines actually end up at the same ticket counter where you can exchange your online reservation for a real ticket or buy a ticket if you don't have one already. It didn't really matter that we actually waited in the longer pre-booked ticket line, because we only had to wait for 10 minutes, BUT we were a little bit irritated by the fact that people without a ticket were getting in faster than we were^^. 

THEREFORE: If you have a pre-booked ticket but the no-ticket line is shorter, go for it because both lines end up at the same ticket counter!

• In conclusion I would say that if you are visiting on a weekday in the early morning, you could buy your ticket at the entrance

• If you are visiting on the weekend or during the very busy summer months (July, August), you should consider buying your ticket online in oder to get in faster (usually the pre-booked ticket line is a lot shorter than the no-ticket line ;) )

Is it worth booking a guided tour?

• We went in by ourselves but looking back now, I would have liked to do a guided tour of the Colosseum. The two most appealing advantages of a guided tour are that you get to see the third floor and the underground catacombs, which you cannot access by yourself. Also you get a lot more information on the Colosseum's history. So I would say that if you are truly fascinated by the Colosseum and want to learn more about it, a guided tour is the perfect option for you.

COLOSSEUM EXPERIENCE & A LITTLE HISTORY

Walking into the Colosseum for the first time is mindblowing! Stepping out of the cool shade of the colosseom arches onto the little platform on the ground floor overlooking the now exposed catacombs, the hot italian sun hits your face, you can almost hear the roman citizens cheer in their seats, heavy weapons being wielded and lions roaring ferociously. If it wasn't for all the tourists, you could almost be transported back to ancient roman times.

Ascending the unusually tall steps to the second ring (first floor) is even more breathtaking. From up here the impressive size of the arena really becomes visible. Unfortunately it is kind of hard to imagine how the Colosseum used to look like in the old days. Of course the catacombs weren't visible but covered by a wooden floor. On top of the floor was a thick layer of sand in order to absorb the fighting gladiator's blood.

The romans were said to have exotic animals appear on the floor of the Colosseum as if it was magic. A documentary team tried to get to the bottom of those rumors and went all out to build a device to lift heavy animals onto the Colosseum floor like the romans would have done. You can actually see the result in the Colosseum today. It's visible in the picture above on the low left. The lifting device is built into the narrow hallways of the underground catacombs and is built exactly like archeologists think the ancient romans did the trick. From above you can only see what looks like a trap door down to the catacombs. Watch the whole documentary on YouTube to see how it works.

It is very interesting to see how extremely far ahead the ancient Romans really were in comparison to other cultures during that time period and the extraordinarily well-planned and built Colosseum only corroborates that fact.
A visit to the largest amphitheater ever built simply is essential when in Rome ;)

THE FORO ROMANO (ROMAN FORUM) 

The Roman Forum is situated just behind the Colosseum and used to be the very center of roman politics, commerce and religion. It was the center of ancient roman public life. Today there are only ruins left, but here and there a few arches and pillars are still standing.

The entrance fee for the Roman Forum, including the Palatine Hill, is built into the ticket price of the Colosseum. It's a package deal. 

GET AN AUDIO GUIDE

Once you're inside, you can get Audio Guides for an additional charge if you are interested. If you just want to walk through the Forum and marvel at the ruins, that's fine, but if you want to be provided with a bit of information on what you are looking at, then those audio guides really come in handy!

Also, they are smart little things, I really like the concept of them. They are actual smartphones on which you are able to chose from various tours through the Forum. The tours are categorized by time. Meaning; there is a one-hour express tour, but you can also do a very detailed three-hour tour through the Forum. When you turn the camera of the phone on and screen your surroundings with it, it will automatically recognize the ruins and buildings around you and give you their name and further information on them. That's what I call a smart smartphone ;)

Since the smartphone audio guides also provide a map of the whole Forum (it is pretty huge), getting lost is not something you have to worry about either. It is a fun little device to play with and is totally worth the additional charge of 7€!

MONUMENTS OF THE ROMAN FORUM

Nowadays the Forum consists of still existing or reconstructed ruins and of almost vanished structures of ancient monuments.

There are two arches that withstood the centuries, the Arch of Septimus Severus and the Arch of Titus. Also three Basilicas remained until today, Basilica Aemilia, Basilica Julia and Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine.

Amongst many more, the remaining temple ruins for roman gods or emperors are for example:

• Temple of Saturn (the roman god of wealth, agriculture, liberation and time; in the temple of Saturn at the Roman Forum, the state treasure was kept)
• Temple of Vesta (the roman goddess of hearth, home and family; her presence was symbolized by a sacred fire that burned in her temple)
• Temple of Caesar (roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar)
• Temple of Romulus (who founded the city of Rome, together with his brother Remus)
• Temple of Venus and Roma (goddesses Venus Felix, the bringer of good fortune and Roma Aeterna, goddess of eternal Rome)

ROME: Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel (Musei Vaticani & Capella Sistina)

TICKETS & QUEUES

Buy your ticket online!

The Vatican Museum is a very popular tourist attraction and that equals loooooong waiting times to get in. In order to get around that, you can book your ticket online! Unfortunately it doesn't save you any money.... BUT it saves you precious time! ;) If you're anything like me, you want to make the most of your travel time and not waste it by unnecessarily waiting in entrance lines! So be smart, plan your trip to the museum beforehand and get your tickets online. You can choose a fixed date and time for your ticket to be valid. I would really recommend you to come in the morning though! Although the line for people without ticket is waaaaaay longer, the pre-booked ticket line can also get quite long in the afternoon. So don't be lazy and get up early! It's worth it!

The museum offers a student discount to all students under the age of 25. Unfortunately me and one of my other travel buddies don't fit into that category anymore, so although we are still students, we had to pay the full price. Which I think is a bit ridiculous. Student is student, right? ;)

In case you don't want to explore the maze-like museum by yourself, you can also book a guided tour. They cost extra of course but I heard that they are really informative. If you don't feel like following a guide, but still want to get some information, the museum offers audio guides for an additional 7€.

Click here to get to the official Museum Website.

INSIDE THE VATICAN MUSEUM


The Vatican Museum is huge! It's like a labyrinth. You could easily spend a whole day in here and still not see everything there is to see.

Once you're inside, get a free map of the museum and look for the rooms you really want to see. So, basically how it works is, you go from one room directly to the other. There are no hallways from which you could enter a variety of rooms and there are also hardly any shortcuts, so you have to walk through every room in order to get to a section you are interested in.

I personally thought the museum was a bit too overwhelming. There are sooooooo many people and the rooms you go through seem endless. And I feel like, after a while, you can't really appreciate all the displays anymore because there is just too much! ;)

But don't get me wrong! It's absolutely beautiful in there! The opulent architechture inside and the ceiling paintings are quite stunning. Walking through there gives you an idea of just how rich the catholic church really is.

What I found most interesting was the Egyptian section. 

There are a lot of egyptian statues. They even have really big ones which is quite impressive. I have never been to Egypt and I really had to wrap my head around the fact that those artifacts I was looking at, are actually the real deal! There were a couple of original sarcophagi and they even have a real mummy in their display. I have to admit the mummy made me feel a bit uneasy. 

I also very much liked the collection of roman statues. Amongst the many many statues of roman heros, there are also the statues of the nine muses. They were the guardian goddesses of sacred festivals and the patronesses of the arts, like poetry and history.

THE SISTINE CHAPEL

The Sisitine Chapel was the last part of the museum we visited. Honestly, I went in without any expectations of how I imagined it to look like. I never saw any pictures of it either. I only knew that it was painted entirely by Michel Angelo and that this is where the picture of Adam and God came from. You know, the zoomed in image of the two hands almost touching. This tiny bit that became so famous around the whole world. But in reality it's only a small fraction of the actual picture. And of course there's the image of the cute little naked baby-angels that everyone knows.

So naturally I automatically looked for those images when we went inside the chapel. I found them very quickly too and I have to say it was kinda cool seeing the actual originals. Unfortunately our visit to the sistine chapel was cut very short by the tons and tons of tourists who were ushered through. The chapel was very crowded and museum staff kept telling us to keep walking. We really didn't have a lot of time to take it all in. I mean, I understand that they want to keep the crowd moving, so there's no "traffic jam". You only had the chance to look for a while when you moved to the middle of the chapel. Which we did for a few minutes. But still you can't really enjoy it with soooo many people around. Also the light in the chapel that day was quite poor and so the colours looked a lot more faded than they really are.

In conclusion, I was glad that I got to see the Sistine Chapel with my own eyes, but I wasn't too impressed by it. And neither was my sister (who was travelling with us). We agreed that the paintings are actually really impressive but the circumstances just weren't ideal. Meaning the tons of tourists, the poor light and the fact that we didn't get enough time to actually look at everything. Also, if you have ever seen a picture of the Sistine Chapel, it is painted all over! From ceiling to walls! And you actually don't even know where to look first^^. It's an overwhelming experience for all the senses ;)

Just to give you an idea of how many people visit the museum!

Don't let that shock you though, it's still worth visiting the MUSEI VATICANI when in Rome ;)

CIAO!