As I turn my tired eyes from a pile of intellectual property documents to the library clock hanging above a sign demanding "silencio", I realise it it is a quarter to midnight - time to head home. Have I already been here for five hours? Is it possible to have this much work the sixth day of the LLM programme at IE law school in Madrid? The answer to both these questions is a surprising "yes", and yet I still am comforted by a simple fact - this is my new home.

I will soon be slowly sauntering down Calle María de Molina with a horde of other IE students, from all over the world, ready for those well-deserved cañas and tapas at one of the thousands of tabernas dotting the streets of Spain's capital city.