These past two weekends I visited Malta and Madrid. Malta was the first time I traveled with as large a group as I did. I knew that I wanted to go somewhere on the water while I was studying abroad, which can be tough when you choose to study abroad in the fall. I went swimming on a little beach for a bit. It was definitely chilly but not at all unbearable. This trip was also the first time I stayed in a hostel. I would definitely recommend doing your research before just picking a random hostel to save money first.
I had never heard much of Malta except for maybe one lesson about geography in high school, so it was not on my radar. I would recommend it to everybody. The cliffs and views of the ocean are incomparable to any other ocean I have seen and there are also a lot of English speakers there too. Just remember that they drive on the left side of the road there! If you want to go out and hit the town with a big group of CIMBA friends look no further!
In Madrid I mostly went for the food, drink, and a bit of observation. It was so funny in an ironic sense that I found myself forgetting Spanish from studying it in high school – Italian seems so much more natural to me at this point. It just goes to show that learning languages in school that you are never going to have touchpoints or verbal access to throughout your life are not very beneficial, in my opinion. I was completely lost and had to resort to translators to even say simple expressions.
I wish I had seen a bit more while I was there. I love going to concerts and events so if there was a soccer match or show at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium I would have loved to go. There were a lot of random people walking around in costumes: ranging from giant gorillas, Bumblebee from Transformers, and Mike Wazowski, very random. You also should order Sangria at some point while in Madrid, it is life changing. Arrivederci!