Random Observations About Things in Madrid

Now that I have been here for just over a month, I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of the city, the country, etc. So I thought I’d share some interesting things that I’ve learned:

·         Despite the economic crisis, apparently MBAs are very much still in demand from employers. My classmates looking to work in spain or the EU generally, have had no issues getting job interviews or employment offers.

·         Given what I am used to in Canada (and from my summer in London, UK), coming to Madrid, everything seemed incredibly cheap by my standards. So I thought working here would be pretty awesome, thinking the cost of living would be lower. However, I learned that most conglomerates don’t pay very well. So madrileños purchasing power parity (yeah that’s right, I just said “purchasing power parity.” This IS an MBA blog after all!) ends up being about the same as residents of Toronto.

·         Because of the above, most middle-class madrileños live in the suburbs. I learned though that in spanish, the word “suburbio” (the literal translation) has a negative connotation. Think the suburban immigrant slums outside of Paris. To talk about a “normal” suburb, it’s just your “barrio,” meaning neighbourhood.

·         As you may know, contemporary Spaniards are a very secular and liberal bunch. Across Catholic and Jewish (not sure about muslim) people- especially those my age or younger- it is catholic or Jewish in family background only. “Madrid culture” supersedes religion by a landslide. So for example, a Jewish Madrileño and Christian madrileño are probably more similar to each other than a Christian Madrileño and a Christian Canadian.

·         In Madrid, when it rains, it pours, literally. It was sunny with more or less clear skies every single day since I arrived (so about 35 days in a row). Yesterday we got our 1^st rain. 24 hours non-stop POURING. Today it is cloudy and all next week, back to sun. What a city…

This coming week is “career week” for the IE student community. I am excited to see what IE has in store for us! I’ll tell you guys about in in my next post!