Host Family and Travels to Barcelona

Hola!

Can’t believe it’s been nearly a week since I’ve been gone from the United States.  Time has definitely flown by.  Since the last post, I moved in with my Spanish host family, traveled to Spain’s northeastern coast to see Barcelona, and started my business classes.

After a second night at Hotel Fernando in Seville, my host mom, Teresa, met me and my roommate at the hotel and we taxied back to her apartment, about a 30 minute walk away from the TTU Center where classes are held.  After unpacking, Teresa rode the bus with us so we could get a feel for navigating the routes to and from school.  Instead of busing back, we just walked.  There are some nice sights along the route, including a huge park, the University of Seville, a casino, a couple fancy restaurants, and a nice fountain.  All in all a pretty good walk.  The weather has also been perfect at 70-80 degrees.  Back in the US, I would definitely drive somewhere if it took 30 minutes to walk, but here a half-hour walk to get somewhere is the norm.  Very few people drive cars within the city because parking spaces are so limited and the bus system is pretty efficient.

Teresa’s apartment is small by US standards but mid-size over in Spain.  I would guess it’s about 700 square feet in total, and that includes three bedrooms. Her food is incredible though.  We eat three home-cooked meals with her a day when we’re in Seville.  She is also super nice and even speaks a bit of English when my roommate and I are struggling to communicate a thought.

Since I’ll be studying in Spain for just a month, I am traveling every weekend to get the most out of my time in Europe.  The first trip was last weekend to the incredible coastal city of Barcelona.  Palm trees dot the coast, mountains line the horizon, history abounds from nearly every corner.   All six of us had a blast, and it was definitely one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.

Since I have several friends who have studied abroad in Spain before, I got some recommendations for “must-sees” in Barcelona. These included the giant, as-of-yet-unfinished Sagrada Familia Basilica, the touristy Las Rambles city center, and two incredible parks (one designed mainly by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi).  We definitely walked more than 20 miles over the weekend to see everything, so everyone is a bit sore today.

I definitely learned a lot during each step of the trip to Barcelona.  The first adventure was navigating the Seville bus route in the wee hours of Saturday morning to get to the airport.  Since my Spanish is painstakingly limited, I relied on maps and my IPhone GPS to find the train station, where the entire group decided to meet before heading to the airport.  After a friend showed me how to use the Iphone’s real-time location tracker even without cell phone reception or wifi, I have been using it to double-check all my directions.  At 6:30 in the morning in a city where you understand 30% of what people say, it’s nice to know that the ghost of Steve Jobs is looking out for you.

All six of us met at the train station about 6:45 and headed to the airport.  This was my first experience on RyanAir, and if it wasn’t way cheaper than everything else, I probably would have flown with another airline.  RyanAir makes you go through so many unnecessary steps as part of the boarding process.  If you forget to print your boarding pass, it costs something like 30 Euros for them to print it for you; if your bag weighs more than 10 kg or is even slightly over their permitted dimensions, it’s a 60 Euro fine; if you don’t get your pre-printed boarding pass stamped by a RyanAir agent before going through airport security, you have to buy another boarding pass from them.  Definitely ridiculous.  Thankfully none of us had to pay any fines.

Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona

One of my favorite aspects of Barcelona was walking around as a group.  Because we walked everywhere we went, we got to see lots of different sights we wouldn’t have otherwise seen.  In addition to the main tourist attractions, we went to the Barcelona mall right on the ocean, the main nightlife hub of the city, and all sorts of cool buildings throughout the city.  The trip was definitely more about the journey than any sort of concrete destination, and that made it all the better.  

                                        View of Barcelona

                     Famous fountain at Parque de la Ciutadella

                             Gaudi's Tiles at Parque Guell

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for updates about this week’s adventures.  Until then, I have homework to finish up because the “study” abroad aspect of the program is finally kicking in.  My first class was today.

Adios!

Joseph

Smooth Beginnings

Hola Amigos!  

Yesterday was a busy day of traveling.  As expected, things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but still pretty smoothly. Sagar and I both flew Amarillo => DFW =>Madrid => Seville. Our DFW flight was supposed to leave around 5:30PM, but with delays the plane didn't take off until after 10 PM. By then, we were definitely ready to leave. 

Waiting on runway to leave.

The flight landed about 10 hours later in Madrid (about 3PM local time)  This delay in leaving caused us to miss our connecting flight in Madrid, but thankfully American Airlines was able to re-route us onto the next Madrid => Seville flight, and all was well.  The Madrid airport was huge, but agents were helpful and we made the connecting flight with few issues.  The next flight took about an hour, so around 5PM we made it to Seville.

The Seville airport was much easier to navigate, our checked bags showed up at baggage claim within 10 minutes (a big concern of ours considering delayed flights from both Amarillo and DFW), and our cab driver from the airport to the hotel even played an American rock station for us on the radio.  The hotel staff was also pleasant.  Because Texas Tech sends lots of students to study in Seville, the hotel manager gave us a “Texas Tech Discount” of 30 Euros - more than 25% off. Talk about a good way to start this trip.  Needless to say, these first couple interactions with Sevillians could not have been better.

After getting settled in the hotel room (a 4-star hotel for which we paid less than $100!), I met up with a couple friends, Brooke and Kate, who also happen to be in Seville this summer but on a different program.  They are here on a Spanish language program whereas I am here for the faculty-led business program.  Kate studied in Seville last summer too, so she showed us some cool places to hang out, chow down on food, and relax.  She and Brooke also gave us an impromptu tour of the “Texas Tech Center.”  The building is indistinguishable and super easy to miss unless you know exactly where you’re going.  This is intentional because the US doesn’t have a great reputation over in Spain, and vandalism would be a concern if the building had US or TTU branding.

TTU Center Front Entrance

Brooke and Kate

                    First visit to TTU Center!

After exploring the city a bit last night, I went back to the hotel and called it a night. The seven hour time change made it hard to get to sleep though.  My “mental clock” just wouldn’t let me doze off at 3PM US time (midnight here), but I got to sleep a few hours later and didn’t wake up until after noon local time.  Definitely a much-needed rest.

After waking up and getting out of the room about 1:45 today (such a tough life), Sagar and I made a mad dash for lunch before siesta started in the city about 2PM.  During siesta almost all the shops and restaurants close down, so we made it just in the nick of time.  Being American we obviously chose pizza for the first meal in Spain.  It was delicious and pretty cheap.  This was one slice, so portions seem to be generous over here. No complaints there. Photocredit to Sagar.

Later this evening is our group orientation, where the other 15-20 people on the business program meet up and learn about Spanish cultural norms, our classes over here, and the names of our Spanish host families.  I’m really excited about that.  I start staying with my host family tomorrow.

In short, Spain is awesome and I’m super excited to be here!

-Joseph

The Adventures Begin

Hello Readers,

This marks my first blog post of many this summer.  Over the next few months I will be traveling to both Seville, Spain for a month-long study abroad program through Texas Tech and to Washington, DC to work as a Congressional Intern for Representative Pete Olson (TX-22).  I will be consistently sharing experiences about both of these trips throughout the summer.  This is partially because it's required for both programs but also partially because I enjoy writing.

For those of you who know me well, you definitely understand that my procrastination tendencies get me into trouble sometimes.  My flight to Spain leaves this afternoon, so naturally I finished packing this morning.  I never expected packing for this trip to take as long as it did.  I started yesterday afternoon but after doing laundry, going shopping, picking up travel maps from AAA, checking in online for flights, etc, the list seemed to go on and on.  There is definitely something about international trips that adds a layer of stress to packing.   When traveling around the US, it's easy to pick up a missing phone charger, toothpaste, or shoes, but overseas it's not as simple.  Parts are different, chargers are incompatible, sizes don't fit giants like me. After going through my bags a couple times, I think I've got pretty much everything, but it seems there's always something missing.  Things hardly ever go exactly according to plan.  But that's part of the adventure.

I am incredibly excited to study abroad, but that doesn't mean I'm not nervous.  I definitely am a bit. One reason is that I'll be living with a Spanish host family for the next month.  My Spanish language ability is definitely not great, and I'm expecting the most challenging part of the trip will be handling the language barrier.  The host families only speak Spanish to us, so that'll add a challenge for sure.

My roommate over in Spain will be a friend from school,  Sagar.  He's from New Mexico, so he's also had a decent amount of exposure to Spanish growing up.  Both of us also took Spanish in high school, so between the two of us, I'm hoping we'll be able to survive.

I'm about to finish tying up loose ends before the flight this afternoon, so the next post will be from Seville!  Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Joseph