Landing Days, Dems Abroad, and travel

So much has happened since the last time I blogged! I feel like that's going to be the case during most of this MBA experience!

First of all, last Tuesday I attended one of the Landing Days session the Student Office puts on. Useful information was given on cell phone contracts, bank accounts, apartment hunting, and immigration. Since I had already found my studio apartment, I could fill out the immigration form right then and there requesting my NIE. One thing I really like about all these initial orientation activities is that they combine students from all of IE's exchange and master programs so I've been able to meet people also in other programs. 

Later that night, I went to my first Democrats Abroad meeting in Spain. I was previously a member in the Piedmont/Liguria/Valle d'Aosta chapter in Italy, so I decided to check out the Madrid chapter. I like Dems Abroad for a variety of reasons. First of all, the meetings are great for networking. Case in point, I met an IE professor! Second, because while I might not always follow party lines, I enjoy the philosophical discussions and the international nature of the events put on by the organization. At this September meeting, for example, Francisco Fonseca, Director of the European Commission in Spain, gave a speech on the future of EU-US relations post-Lisbon Treaty. 

The rest of the week I dedicated to making my new little apartment home. That means, of course, a trip to the urban sprawl that is IKEA. I'm still researching what internet contract to sign up with once I get my NIE. I think I want something with a little more umph than the company the school promotes - StudentsPhone, offers. 

I spent the weekend in Valencia with my boyfriend. Thank God for low-cost airfare! He can fly from Italy to meet me in Madrid, and many other Spanish towns for next to nothing. Unfortunately, the Joaquin Sabina concert we bought tickets to was cancelled, and it rained a lot. So not a lot of beach time nor Spanish music, but we did get to meet up with one of my boyfriend's childhood friends and so we enjoyed a local's take on the city... and a lot of paella and tapas!

some good news, and some bad news

The most exciting news... after seeing 4 more studios and 2 shared apartments yesterday, I got confirmation from the landlord of the studio I saw two days ago could be mine! My feet hurt so bad from walking all over the city, I was so overjoyed. It's going to be tiny, but I love the area. I love that I'm two minutes away from shops, restaurants and two movie theaters on the north part of the Fuencarral. I love that I can walk to the campus in 25 minutes. I love that I can walk down to Bilbao and Chueca in 15!

Now the bad news... I went to sign for my Caja Madrid account this morning - no problems and great service there. So to fill up my account with my Sallie Mae loan, I needed to cross the street and talk to the people in the IE financial aid and administration offices. While everyone seemed sympathetic of my cause, there's some computer/bank/technology program, and so my money could be transferred today (if I'm lucky)... or Friday. I was hoping that since the school opened my bank account for me with Caja Madrid, that it could have been an automatic procedure to transfer the money arriving from Sallie Mae into the account. Not the case. I understand, I just hope my landlord understands and will be able to wait for the money until Monday. I'm just a bit, ok a lot, bummed because I really wanted to get out of this hostel. Someone was coughing away the other night and I've definitely come down with a cold and a very painful pinched nerve in my neck from carrying around my laptop everywhere.

Besides looking for apartments yesterday, I went to two presentations put on by the Student Office for new students. The first one was about how to access the online services of the library. The second was a bit longer, but very appropriate for nascent MBAers: "The Sustainable Student" a talk given by Geoff Martin, currently a Personal Trainer in Madrid and formerly an MBA student and Strategy Consultant. I liked that he reminded us to make health a priority. I recently read in the Italian edition of the Harvard Business Review an article by HBS Professor Clayton M. Christensen about managing your life and priorities. One of Christensen's main points was to decide your priorities and stick with them, never allow yourself those "just this once" moments, otherwise after the first slip of judgment or surrender to laziness, it only becomes easier to do it a second time. Martin's talk had a similar theme, but pumped us all up about making fitness a high priority if we don't want avoidable health problems in our late 30s. I checked out a gym by my hopefully new apartment yesterday afterward. It's pretty pricey, so I'll have to evaluate that purchase carefully...

Wishing myself luck for a healed neck nerve and for a sympathetic meeting with the landlord in two hours!

que locura!

Que locura (what craziness) would describe well my first two days in Madrid. Last night, my first night here, was a once a year event called Noche en Blanco. What it involved basically was the city of Madrid throwing a huge, night-long party. There were video and music installations everywhere, museums were open all night and free, and according to El País (national newspaper) over 700,000 people filling the downtown streets. It was absolutely gorgeous, so lively, so fun, so creative. 

The other crazy part - the mad apartment seeking going on in the hostel I'm staying in. Everyone here is looking for an apartment, or at least a room in a shared apartment. I decided right from the beginning to just ignore their phone calls, to not stress myself out if they were checking out the same apartments I am. But of course, I'm asking for tips! I saw one place today in a neighborhood I really like near the Quevedo metro stop. Two issues, one more easily resolved than the other. First, another person is also interested, so the guy who showed me the apartment has to see what's up with the person his sister showed the apartment. Second, and not so big of a deal (or at least I'm telling myself that) is that there's no oven or even convection oven... I figure I could buy a small convectional one... We'll see... I have three appointments tomorrow - two more studios and one room.

off to Madrid!

I'm finally off to Madrid today! I have a round trip ticket from Torino, I'll come back to Italy at the end of the month. The goal of these three weeks will be first and foremost to find an apartment, whether its my own or just a room. Other stuff I'll be dealing with in the next few days will be a cell phone contract, making sure all's good with my Caja Madrid account, and starting the NIE immigration documents.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the materials put on the IE Blackboard site in the last few weeks, and anxious about the apartment search. How many people should I live with? IE students or other young professionals/students found online? Alone? But now that I'm actually about to take off, it feels better just to be almost in Madrid... These choices are much better made crawling the streets than scraping away my peripheral vision looking at online classifieds on idealista.com day in and out. 

Hopefully my next post will be about my new home!

last days of freedom!

I'm down to the last days of my pre-Madrid, pre-IE Business School MBA life! This is my last week of playing around in Italy before starting the apartment search Saturday in Madrid! 

In reality, my "IE Business School MBA life" started two years ago around this time when I started studying for the GMAT,  and I never stop bothering my boyfriend with business ideas that I can't wait to try out with IE's supposedly great entrepreneurial resources. We made a mini-trip to the beach this past weekend... chilling out with this view in sight made me think up of a million ways to find work in a nice beach town.

view of Portovenere from Isola Palmaria beach

But then again, how could I choose just one? Beach town, that is. Better to travel the world working first, see many great beaches, and then figure out a time-share plan... Hehe... The key is to dream big, and that's what I plan on doing throughout the MBA! Good luck to me and my future classmates, especially with the upcoming apartment searches!

i heart Facebook

Some very industrious future classmates of mine started earlier this year a group on Facebook called "IE MBA November 2010 Intake," and I cannot tell you what a resource it has already been. For example, this past Friday afternoon I posted a question on the group wall asking who else was signing up for the SANITAS health care plan. 21 comments and a new post later (all in a 4 day time frame, 2 if you don't count the weekend) we have helped each other to figure out what this service is exactly offering to IE students. 

Similar discussions on scholarship and visa application procedures have been hashed out on other threads. Since the school offices are sometimes overloaded with emails, this Facebook group has definitely become the fastest way to get information on our upcoming MBA program, in my opinion.

The only thing I'm going to be a little hesitant posting advice on is  regarding the apartment search (at least until my abode is secured). I feel like any edge I get on that with my budget is like finding gold! I am very excited to get the apartment hunt over with.

Now, off to read the new forum discussion on summer internships...

first bureaucratic hurtle overcome! i have my visa!

Yesterday I picked up my passport with no problems from the Spanish Consulate in Chicago! First bureaucratic hurtle has been surpassed. I'm a little anxious about the immigration permit process once I arrive in Spain, just because it was such a nightmare in Italy... but it seems like IE has everything very organized with the local authorities. There's just going to be a little problem I should have foreseen - my Caja Madrid account (and therefore my Sallie Mae loan) will be blocked until I get my NIE (número de identificación de extranjeros - foreigner id number) number, which sounds like it will take about a month. So I'm going to have to raise some last minute cash to cover first month expenses, like a deposit on an apartment. All these little preparations are just part of the fun and learning process of moving to yet another new country!