Continued... 

This break was much anticipated, even though finishing midterms week would mean the program was already halfway through…and my semester abroad come to a close. Sadly, I’m currently writing this blog post from my return train from Nantes to Paris. This very keystroke was typed as my OuiGo 7622 train left from Gare de Nantes at 11h40. 

Goodbyes are never easy—especially when you bid farewell to the place where you called home for the past few months. 

“Tell me about Spain!” says everyone at home.

I have not figured out how to answer this, and it’s how I feel right now as I am writing this reflection, filled to the brim with thoughts, experiences, and gratitude for the amazing people I’ve met, and not sure how to put them into around 500 coherent words. I can’t believe an actual four months just went by, and that an experience I had been dreaming of for so long is now over. 

One of the biggest highlights of studying abroad in Europe has been the ease with which you can travel between the EU countries. There was a lot of uncertainty initially about whether or not traveling would be an option because the COVID situation as we know is always so unpredictable. But luckily, before Europe began going through a big hit by the Omicron variant, me and my friends had the opportunity to travel to quite a few new and beautiful places.

One very important item on my bucket list for Granada was to explore the local coffee scene and nail down a favorite spot. Spanish coffee culture and coffee shop norms are a bit different from what many Americans are used to, including myself. I have prepared a comprehensive list of my favorite coffee shops in Granada and a short blurb about what you can expect when visiting each of them. I hope this can serve as a fun resource for anyone who will soon be studying in Granada! 

Even though I’m not the type of kid to call my parents every day (or week, or month, oops I'm trying to be better) when I told them I wouldn’t have internet for two weeks in the Amazon they were a little worried. I assured them that everything would be fine and gave them the WhatsApp numbers of our coordinators for the university and for IES Abroad. We live in a world that even in the middle of nowhere in the United States sometimes you can still send out a text by just driving fifteen minutes more in a direction.

For the longest time of my life as a student, my grades never turned out the way that I wanted them to, and it made me question my intellect to some extent, but I realized that it was actually because I wasn’t studying effectively. After I changed my study habits and began working smartly, it changed my ability to memorize, to analyze and all the other academic challenges college puts you through. So, I want to share some of my tips:

When I reflect on some of my favorite memories during my time in Spain, many of them involve total strangers or people I didn’t know very well at all. These last couple of months have truly been marked by moments that were full of surprises and spontaneity that I will never forget. 

It feels as if it was yesterday when I was waiting at my gate at the JFK airport with tickets to Paris. I remember there were two flights schedule to depart back-to-back, one to Portland and one to Paris, which is ironic because if I wasn’t going to Paris I would have gone back to Portland to continue my junior year. I arrived in Paris, sleepy, tired, hungry, but ready to start that adventure. It is hard to do this final post and choose what to talk about because there is so much, it is something you must live to fully understand the experience.