The most memorable day of my study abroad semester in Madrid was the day when the power went out in all of Spain and Portugal. It was incredibly chaotic. We were FREAKING OUT at first, but after a few hours, we realized we just had to wait it out and let information come.  

Here’s a timestamped rundown of what was definitely the wildest day of my time studying abroad: 

MONDAY, April 25, 2025 

3:45 am: I woke up in Bologna, Italy. I was visiting my aunt and uncle who are living there and had an early flight to catch before my Spanish language class in Madrid at noon.  

Sunrise. I had no idea what would transpire by sunset… 

8:26 am: Hopped on the Madrid metro to get back home. All was normal, though I was half asleep.  

9:14 am: Got back to the apartment. I did my homework and took a very restful nap on the couch.  

11:45 am: Start heading over to class at Universidad Nebrija, where I took all my classes. When I got there, all the lights were out. We were told that the power had been out at Nebrija since 8am, and it wasn’t the first time power had gone out there, so I didn’t think much of it. My professor usually projects the textbook pages, so we made do with just each following along in our own books. It was kind of dark and very hot in our classroom, and after a bit my professor decided to hold class outside, so we toted all our stuff and sat in these chairs in the area outside the building. We got really hot being in the direct sun, so after a bit she let us go early.  

Blissfully unaware, enjoying class in the sun.  

1:05 pm: I walked back to my apartment. I noticed the streets were oddly busy, and people were out in the streets in a way I’d never seen before. I also noticed that I was jaywalking at basically every intersection but as a New Yorker and as someone who can be just a bit impatient…that’s something I usually do, so I didn’t think much of it. I was also still so tired from having such an early flight, and all I really wanted to do was go home and sleep.  

Busy streets, no streetlights, and people even drawn out onto their balconies trying to make sense of it all.  

1:23 pm: Back at the apartment, I sat down on the couch and tried to watch TV. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t turning on and then tried to text my roommates to ask but nothing was going through. I started to wonder if there was something else afoot… 

1:39 pm: A text from one of my housemates that read: “The electricity is out in the entire Sol.”  

1:45 pm: My roommate came home, in a frenzy. “There’s a blackout!” she announced to me. Apparently, people outside were gathered around cars playing the news on the radio. She told me that power was out in France, Spain, Portugal, and Germany, (we later learned this was not entirely true) and that it was a suspected cyberattack. (Officials say it was a grid outage, whatever that means).  

We freaked out. 

3:09 pm: I sat at home for a while, trying to entertain myself with a book, then with bothering my roommate, then with looking in the fridge for something to eat. One of my housemates reminded me that I shouldn’t open the fridge and let out all the cold air…so I shut it after I realized I couldn’t cook anything on our electric stove.  

3:31 pm: One of my housemates realized that if we were in a cyber war, our water supply might get cut off next. In a PANIC, we filled up every possible pot, glass, bottle, and receptacle we could find. The prep had begun.  

I started to consider what it would be like if the world shut down and I was stuck in this apartment forever. 

4:07 pm: I went for a walk with some of my housemates. The sidewalks were PACKED because all the subway lines were down and cars were backed up in gridlocked traffic. Everyone was trying to walk home. Nobody knew what was really going on. There was an air of panic and chaos, but in a way seeing what was going on outside made everything feel manageable. Maybe there was a blackout, maybe we didn’t know what was going on, but none of us really did, and we would get through it.  

4:51 pm: Got back home and tried to keep distracting myself… 

7:30 pm: My last housemate finally got home. Apparently, she was on the metro when the power went out and she had to be led out of the train, walk through the tunnel to the next station, and then walk all the way home. She attended a different university than me, that was an hour commute by train from our apartment and had to figure out her way home all the way across the city with no easy means of navigating. I thought about how Google Maps is a relatively new invention, but something that nobody these days can really live without. How she made it home, I will never fully understand, but I’m very glad she did, and that she did it safely.  

8:54 pm: We realized that if we were gonna be faced with all this uncertainty, we might as well just try to enjoy ourselves. We walked to the park nearby to watch the sunset. When we got there, there was a huge crowd watching the sunset and a guy singing and playing guitar. It was a phone-less sight. People were singing along, and dancing, and everyone was just enjoying what could have been a scary time by keeping each other company. It made me realize how much hope people really have and the human power to bring joy to anything. 

Okay fine, people were on their phones a bit but mostly just taking pictures. And trying desperately to reach loved ones.  

After a bit I realized that everyone was on their phones again, meaning one thing…the power had to be back on! At that point I was kind of enjoying this phoneless world, thinking again about how this was how things used to be all the time.  

Me and my friends walked home, and as we did, the streetlights came back on.