Cuando llegué a casa, colgué la sudadera en la percha y guardé el peine en el cajón del lavabo.

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Breakdown of Cuando llegué a casa, colgué la sudadera en la percha y guardé el peine en el cajón del lavabo.

• en: in
• cuando: when
• a: to

Questions & Answers about Cuando llegué a casa, colgué la sudadera en la percha y guardé el peine en el cajón del lavabo.

Why are llegué, colgué, and guardé all in the preterite?

Because the sentence tells a sequence of completed actions in the past:

• llegué = I arrived
• colgué = I hung up
• guardé = I put away

In Spanish, the preterite is the normal tense for events that happened and were completed, especially in a story-like sequence.

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Why does it say Cuando llegué a casa and not Cuando llegaba a casa?

Llegué presents the arrival as a single completed event: I arrived home, and then I did the next things.

Llegaba would sound more like:

• an ongoing background action, or
• a habitual action in the past

So:

• Cuando llegué a casa, ... = When I got home, ...
• Cuando llegaba a casa, ... = When I was getting home / Whenever I got home, ...

In this sentence, the first option fits best because it introduces a specific completed moment.

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Why is it a casa and not a la casa?