Hi,

My name is Nikos,
I am Greek and I have been living in the US for the last 10 years (school and work).
I joined your message board a couple of days ago.
The reason I'm writing is basically because in a couple of months I will be moving to Madrid, where I'll be working for at least the next 2 years.
I would like to ask you for an advice about where do you think it would be a good idea
for me to look for a place to live in Madrid. My future working place seems to be near the Santiago Bernabeu.
I would be grateful if you could give me some opinions about areas of Madrid where you think it is worthwhile looking for a place. Thank you.
nikos

hola nikos. wow, you are going to be living a dream come true, you will be able to live and work legally in madrid, congratulations! a lot of people would do almost anything to be in your situation. i am sure that other members will also suggest places to live but i prefer the center of madrid (as you can tell form my apartment location), heck, if i were you i would live on top of "Kilometro 0" the closer to the center of madrid the better i always say. taking into account that your job is near the Estadio Benab�u, your Metro stop will be on line 10 which is ok but is you want to live in the center it will be a line change to get there. not to fear, my girlfriend works in that exact same area and it only takes her 30 minutes or so to get from our place to her office. if you need help looking around, look at my links page where you will find a section on apartment finding resources for madrid. hope i helped out.
hasta pronto, jer...

ok Jeremy....I'm interested now. I know you've lived in Madrid for about 5 years. What is your day job and are you an EU resident? Or did you do it the hard way? (coming from the US)?

Leche
*lived in Madrid '91 - '93 and back twice...

Hola Jared, the truth is that my story is one of stroke of luck. I was actually born in Glasgow, Scotland to an American father stationed in the Navy there and since my mom had the foresight to go into labor while we were off of the Naval base, I was born in the local hospital and was entitled to a UK passport despite the fact that we left for NY when I was 2 months old (did not even get to try on a Kilt ). If I had been born in the naval hospital I would not have been so lucky since it is US property. So, When I graduated from a Masters program in Madrid in 1996, I decided to try to get into the Complutense Doctorate program as a EC citizen and wrote to the British government to ask for permission to return legally to Europe. I expected maybe a temporary resident or work permit and almost passed out when they sent me a full fledged passport for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. So, that was the green light, I made the jump and the rest is history. As for my "day job", although I was a Spanish teacher in the USA and have studied all my life for that "calling", when I came to live in Madrid and began to look for a job teaching Spanish in a language school, I got tired of them saying that I could not teach Spanish but that they had English teaching positions available aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhhh! So, I started playing around with computers and graphic and web design and fell in love with it. Never actually took a class on it but it was so much fun that I just kept on going and learning more. En fin, currently I maintian multimadrid.com (no small task!), and www.oleidiomas.com (the first project I launched a few years back, currently in a state of redesign but 100% functional nonetheless) and I also design quite a few webs for anyone and everyone in Madrid (and Spain) who wants one. I also just began a side business connecting tourists and temporary visitors to Madrid to the Internet (hotel/hostal vists and that sort of thing) and it has proved to be rather lucrative. They roll into town with few Spanish skills and call me to get them online, I like being able to help them out so they can get their WEB "CHUTE" (FIX). Well, that was a bit long but there you have it, in a nutshell.
take care, jer...

p.s. Hey Jared, when you asked if I did it "the hard way", for a second I thought you were reffering to getting married to an Espa�ola, jejeje! (just kidding ladies!)
jer...

Very interesting and informative Jer, thanks for taking the time to write that up. Since you are ovbiously in the know about masters programs in Madrid, care to elaborate on the options? I am researching what US based schools have study programs in Madrid or simply the best way to start studying in Madrid for a business degree. I currently hold a BA in Spanish from a US university.

Jared

Hi Jared. I am ashamed to say that I do not know much about Graduate programs that do not have to do with languages. I did my Masters here in Hispanic Lang. and Lit. with Middlebury College through their 6 week summer in Vermont and academic year abroad here in Madrid and it had it's ups and downs. The positive aspect is that is was a quality school with good resources and excellent teachers (also reasonably priced) while on the down side, we studies at the Intstituto Internacional de Madrid and it is chock full of Americans . I am an American as well and have nothing against them but even though we had to take a language pledge to only speak Spanish while in Madrid, it would have been much better to be on the Complutense (University of Madrid) campus and mixed in with Spaniards.
Take care,
jer...