3 Months In

What's up all my peeps out there! I know you all have been dying to get a look at my first post. Well, the time has come and although this may be my first blog post, turns out you all have missed out on a quite a bit. Actually, as of today it makes 3 months exactly since the day that I left the U.S. to start my travels abroad. Hard to believe after waiting for so long to start this trip, I've already three months in. As I have been here for quite a while now, I'm not even sure where to start. So, I'm just going to use this first post to fill you in a little on where all I’ve actually been and a few of things I’ve done.

Turns out it can be pretty beneficial having international friends. Last year, as I did not have any eligibility remaining to play soccer at Maryville, I had more free time and ended up becoming good friends with quite a bit of the internationals studying at Maryville. This has turned out to be a great help for my travels abroad. During school last year after I had found out that I was accepted to Spain, I began making my travel plans to come early and visit my friends before starting my classes in Spain in order to travel and be able to have more time to be able to learn Spanish. As two of my friends are Spanish this was a great opportunity for me.

During time of first semester last year

I actually began my trip by going to Northern Ireland to stay with my friend MaryClaire and her family in Belfast. This actually worked out well as the flight was much cheaper to Ireland although I had to take the interesting route of making two stops in Canada and eventually arriving at the Dublin airport. However, I did eventually arrive and I had one of my best weeks here. During my time in Ireland, I think I practically did all of the touristy things possible in Northern Ireland as it's not very big. Although they don't speak Spanish in Ireland, at times it did feel like I was practicing a different language due to the strong accents in many places. Additionally, one of my highlights here was attempting my first horse ride in which I was surprisingly able to carry out without dying. And if you were wondering.. yes it is very green in Ireland and it does rain just about every single day. However, it is a country with some awesome scenery and a lot of fun stuff to do.

Trying to pretend I know what I'm doing

Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

After my first week flew by, it was time to make my way to Spain to stay with my friend Marcos in his hometown of Avila about an hour to the northwest Madrid. I’m not going to lie, although I was very excited, I began to get a little nervous for the first time as I was making my bus trip from Belfast to the Dublin airport at 2am in the morning. It began to hit me that I was about to enter a country with a completely different language and different culture. Making matters worse, my flight was

 at 6am and I was not able to get any sleep before the flight or during the flight thanks to some party hard Irish goers sitting right behind me. However, everyone that I met here in Avila was super nice including Marcos’ family, making everything really easy. Although the Spanish was definitely difficult to get accustomed to for much of my time here in Avila, it has really helped me as now I feel that I have a head start on most all of the other erasmus (international) students in my university. Additionally, during my time at Marcos’ place, one of the best things was that we were able to travel quite a bit as we went to several different cities/beaches throughout Spain as well as traveling to Amsterdam and Belgium for a week.

With Marcos and his friends at the pool in his neighborhood

Amsterdam

After about five weeks in Avila, Marcos and I made our way to the region of Murcia where I have actually begun my studies now and where Sofia also studies. MaryClaire flew in as well and we all stayed at a house on the beach that Sofia's parents had rented. We had a blast here as we had the tough task of visiting a ton of beaches and laying out in the sun every day. After this week I spent a couple more weeks with Sofia and her family before actually beginning my courses. These weeks here helped me to get accustomed to the city in which I would be living and the differences between Murcia and Avila. So yea.. that's all I got for you all this week. It's been quite the tough life here abroad. Til next time.

First time downtown in Murcia

A small beach near the mountains