Time Flies | Education Abroad GeoBlog

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Hola Amigos!

Lo siento! I am sorry for not writing sooner, not that I believe many people are checking this blog for updates anyway 🙂 . Its hard for me to believe that I have been in Spain for nearly a month already. Time flies …

To make up for lost time I am going to post a few blog entries at once, and hopefully stay on track from now on. Although, I have become a huge procrastinator in college so we shall see if this plan works out or if I end up posting a bunch at once again.

This post will cover an overview of Spain and my experiences/feelings so far concerning learning a new language. So much has happened since I arrived in Spain on Monday, January 9^th.

I turned 21.
I booked trips to Amsterdam, Portugal, Barcelona, Scotland, Seville, Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, Leon …. I’m pretty blessed …. And I’m still trying to book trips to Brussels, Valencia, Granada, Ibiza, Alicante, and maybe Prague (hey you only live once!)
I visited Amsterdam.
I moved into a house with complete strangers, whom I now refer to as my Spanish family.
I learned my way to navigate around a new city and country while communicating in a different language than English.
I started classes at a new school, and they are all Spanish. Oh boy!
I started to teach English to two girls, ages 4 & 7, twice a week.
I became fast friends with plenty of American students in my program, and we have spent the last few weeks exploring and enjoying all Alcala, Madrid, and Europe have to offer.

Writing down all that has happened so far (and I could have continued with a lot more) has only reminded me of how lucky I am to be living abroad for these few months. Although, I will honestly admit- it has not been a bowl of cherries all the time.

I think the “honeymoon” stage of living in Spain wore off this past Monday when I returned from Amsterdam. I was tired and not in the best of moods. I knew adjusting to being immersed in a new culture and language would be a bit difficult, but I did not know how mentally tough it would be to actively try to speak a new language each day. It’s different than in the US when you have a challenging class in college, and you need to concentrate for fifty minutes, and then you can leave and not think about it for a little while, or not at all.

Here, the students in my program and I talk about how we are so tired and our brains hurt all the time from communicating in Spanish. Here, you can’t be thinking about something else while you are in class or in a conversation with someone. You need to completely concentrate and focus all your efforts on listening and understanding …. (although, maybe this a good reminder for me of how I should have conversations with everyone all the time- they should have my full attention).

According to our program coordinator, right now its tough for most of us (not all- some people are fairly fluent- lucky ducks!) because we are:

hearing things in Spanish- translating it to English in our heads- thinking of a response in English- then translating it to Spanish- and then finally responding and speaking in Spanish. Once we eliminate those middle three steps, she claims, we will be fine. I can’t help but think -in English 🙂 – “Well of course, then we’d be fluent.”

All good things take time, and I know learning a new language will be worth it in the end, which is why I signed up for this program. But, it certainly has been a humbling experience. And, it has greatly increased my respect for immigrants, and anyone who has ever moved to a new place and needed to learn a new language.

“Cada d�a, cada d�a” or “each day, each day” as mi madre in Spain would say. Each day, it becomes a little easier to speak, and a little easier for me to understand. Once I got over my need to attempt to speak perfectly (I have this annoying desire to make everything I do perfect, which I know, I know is IMPOSSIBLE), it became easier to communicate. As usual, I was thinking too much. Once I stopped thinking and just starting speaking- things became a little easier, or at least a lot less stressful.

An appropriate reminder for here, and for anytime I try something new.

Really, the only hard thing here has been the language barrier, and even with that- I still love my friends, host family, classes, and city, and I couldn’t be more grateful for this opportunity. Aside from having the most fun semester of my college years (and I am only a month in), I have met wonderful people and gotten to see some amazing places- and I still have three months left !

Location: Alcala de Henares, Spain

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