Before college, my sister, the world traveler of my family, used to go on about how studying abroad was one of the best experiences of her life and how I just had to do it. And at first I didn’t believe her. I’m the type of person who gets extremely home sick and the thought of being so far away from home for an entire semester made me a little uneasy. So as she went on about how I should travel I agreed and told her I would totally look into it. But the truth is, I just brushed her aside and didn’t give it a second thought. But one day I got an email from the study abroad office about a 5 week long summer trip to Spain where I could improve my Spanish and fulfill a religion credit, so I thought, “What the heck, it’s only 5 weeks. I’m in.” Short and sweet and I could satisfy my family. Little did I know this 5 week trip would end up holding some of the best moments of my life.
1. You never know what awesome thing might be going on while you’re there.
Like getting out of class early because the queen is giving a speech 10 minutes away from your school. Or getting to Madrid and walking walking out your front door to a full blown concert because you realizing that you’re there during the biggest gay pride weeks in the world.
(I took this picture. Thats how close we were)
2. You realize how many stereotypes people have about Americans (and how many are actually true).
Catching myself screaming at the dinner table, going out to dinner and bothering the waiter for the wifi password because we just needed to use our phones, and being picky eaters are just a few…
3. You make friends from your school you may have never talked to otherwise.
My trip was 8 girls, all of whom did not know eachother at first but the bonds we made on this trip could last a lifetime. When you’re eating, sleeping, studying with the same group of people for 5 week straight it’s hard not to feel like you’ve been friends forever. These girls know exactly what you’ve been going through and any hard times or dramas we faced, in the end we always treated eachother like sisters.
4. You might have too much fun that you forget you’re there for school.
So you’re way past the legal drinking age and you can bascially take full advantage of the nightlife. But just because you can doesnt mean you should and I learned this the hard way. because while it might be easy to get tied up in all of the fun things to do youre there for school and in the end all of the drinking and fun really isnt worth it when you end up with a bad grade. So one should expect that their are going to be temptations but you have to be strong enough to see when you should just say no.
5. You might fall in love and never want to leave.
The hardest thing for me was leaving my residence in Salamanca. In just three weeks I felt like Salamanca was my home. I built a bond with all of the kids in our residence hall and leaving there was difficult. It’s hard when you build a connection with a place and leave it knowing you’ll probably never see it again.