Homesickness

My blogs and Instagram correspondent posts have been showing the exciting traveling and exploring aspects of studying abroad, but it is not always so fun. This does not mean studying abroad hasn’t been great and an amazing opportunity, but rather that I have had various feelings throughout the semester. In the beginning, orientation and settling into your host city leaves no space for self-reflection, but after a few weeks, I started to feel a huge wave of homesickness.

As someone whose weekend trips have been to Spanish cities, I recommend Bilbao in the north! We left Friday morning and arrived midday after two trains. I will outline our schedule, but you can move it around, swap some things out, or even add places based on your interests! 

Someone once said to me, everyone has to live in a city at least once in their life and it’s better to do it when you’re young. I’ve always known I’m not a city person and can’t go too long without being in nature. Going to all of these big cities every weekend has been fun, but I’m all for the quaint mountain villages. I love Vienna and all of the places I’ve traveled during my time here and I can’t imagine studying anywhere else, but I miss nature. I miss waking up early for sunrise hikes, coffee, and mountains.

All work, all fun, what is a day really like while studying abroad?

Even though every week in Salamanca is a blast, we were all really looking forward to Spring Break. I was originally anticipating my parents being able to visit for longer, so I was severely behind on my Spring Break plans. Nonetheless, for the first half of the break, my roommate and I were able to book (only slightly last minute) our trip to Rome. We ended up leaving Thursday night on a horrific experience with Wizz Airlines. Our flight was delayed 2.5 hours and then we had to wait 1 hour on the tarmac after landing, making it to our hostel at 3 AM. 

BlaBlaCar is… to use a phrase that we picked up during orientation and couldn’t stop saying… súper guay. That’s to say it’s super cool. The first time I used the app, to travel the 90 minute drive between Málaga and Granada, I paid only nine euros. But not only that, it was an opportunity to practice my Spanish and get to know a masters student studying physics at the UGR. As fate would have it, our flights lined up so that he also gave me a ride back home to Granada at the end of the weekend.