Final Study Abroad Thoughts

Nine European cities, one class, countless memories. Now, thirty days after the adventure began, I’m writing my final “study abroad” blog from the airplane heading from Madrid to Dallas! Hard to believe. This last month has been one of the best trips ever, and I would recommend anyone considering studying abroad to definitely take the plunge. It’s worth the cost many times over. I learned a lot about Spanish culture and international commerce and how to navigate foreign cities. I also made some great new friends!


This last week in Spain has been remarkably different than the first several. Instead of the week being jam-packed with daily excursions, I’ve had a lot more time to relax, enjoy exploring Seville, and study for my final. The final exam on Friday went really well. Through taking the class in a team environment (with two other people on my team), my team skills have definitely improved. I’m not normally a fan of group projects in school because it’s hard to find a group whose members pull an equal share of the weight, but the team environment in this class worked extremely well.


Because the last week has been more relaxing, I had time to visit several other sights in Seville and go shopping for some souvenirs. One of the coolest places I visited last week was Plaza de Espana, best known as the movie set of the planet Naboo in Star Wars.

                   Plaza de Espana in Seville


Another fun part about last week was getting to visit with some long-time friends who happened to be vacationing in Seville during my last day there. Since it had been five years since our last visit, it was particularly cool to see them here in Spain! They live in Virginia now, so hopefully we’ll be able to meet up again while I’m working in Washington, DC later this summer.


One of the hardest parts about leaving Spain was saying bye to my host mom, Teresa. She is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and while my roommate and I were staying in her apartment, she treated us like family. She cooked three (very good) meals a day for us, helped us learn to navigate Seville, told us we were blessed with good looks, etc. The whole works. If there were a “host family of the year” award, she would win it. On our last day in Seville, Sagar and I bought her a box of chocolates and a bouquet of her favorite flowers. She was so excited that she immediately called three of her friends to tell them. Mission accomplished.

             Mama Teresa


Although I’m fairly good at planning trips now, I certainly wasn’t before studying abroad.  I was so inexperienced that I didn’t notice I had a 22-hour layover in Madrid until after I had booked the plane ticket. At first I was planning to spend all 22 hours in the Madrid airport (which was a terrible idea to begin with), but after learning about the prevalent pick-pocketing across Madrid, I decided to stay in a hotel near the airport. My dad stays at Hilton hotels almost every time he travels, so he was able to negotiate a free upgrade to the “executive floor." 


This hotel was legit. And not excessively expensive either. Easily one of the nicest hotels I have ever been. The service was great, the people were friendly, and staying on the executive floor was simply awesome.


My friend and I put on our nicest clothes and spent most of the evening in the executive lounge pilfering a variety of snack foods for dinner. I'm sure we blended right in...


                          Executive Lounge


While we were hanging out in the lounge, a guy sitting across from us struck up a conversation. Turns out he’s a current college professor at the University of Arizona, former US diplomat to several countries, and Harvard graduate. We had a great discussion about everything from foreign languages to college to Washington, DC politics. It was great.


The Hilton breakfast was my last meal in Spain - and it was easily the best breakfast of the entire trip. If I ever stay in Madrid again, the Hilton will be at the top of my list.

After traveling for a month though, I’m ready to be back in the United States. Many of the great things we take for granted in the United States rarely exist in Spain. Things like peanut butter, cold milk, large breakfasts, cars the middle-class can afford, showers bigger than 3 square feet, and air conditioning. And on a more serious note, things like the United States’ (relatively) low unemployment rate, vast business opportunities, and quality of college education. I’m glad I studied abroad in Spain. I wouldn’t change any of it and I learned a ton; however, studying abroad has also made me feel more fortunate to live in America.

Gibraltar: A British Land of Caves and Monkeys

Wild monkeys. Caves. One of the world’s best viewpoints.  Welcome to Gibraltar.  This is where I spent my weekend.

Where is Gibraltar exactly?  It’s a small British colony on the Iberian Peninsula to the south of Spain, also 12 miles from the north coast of Africa.

My travel group consisted of my Spanish roommate, Sagar, and three other friends - Brooke, Hannah, and Kate.  It was an awesome bunch so I knew we’d have a great time.  

The Rock of Gibraltar

Our bus got to La Linea (the Spanish city bordering Gibraltar) fairly early Friday evening, so we did some basic surveying of Gibraltar on Friday night and went to sleep at a reasonable hour so we could wake up early on Saturday. Walking into Gibraltar was really cool because the only way to get through is by walking across the airport runway.

I loved every minute of my time in Gibraltar.  It’s a British colony, so from the second we stepped across the Spain/Gibraltar border, everyone spoke English - and with a British accent.  It was great. I fancied every “blimey,” “bloke,” and “cheers” I heard.  The phone booths were pretty swell too.

Our first mission Saturday morning was to order an English breakfast.  Spaniards typically don’t have large breakfasts (it’s usually just toast), so eggs, bacon, coffee, and orange juice was a nice change in pace.  It was also delicious.

After breakfast, we found a tour guide for the Rock of Gibraltar.  The rock is massive, and we were fairly limited on time, so the additional 12 euros each for a guided tour was well worth it.  Our objectives: to see the caves, monkeys, war tunnels, pillars of Hercules, and viewpoints in less than two hours.  Mission accomplished!

St. Michael's Cave

Eating Carrots

Monkeys on the Rocks

 

Chilling on the Tour Guide's Car

 

Hold a Wild Monkey: Check!

 And the other sights...

Pillars of Hercules

Former War Tunnels

Antique Cannon

View of Gibraltar

Gibraltar also has one of the world's most amazing lookout points.  From the top of the rock, we could see Gibraltar, Spain, and Morocco - three countries, two continents.  Breathtaking, no doubt.

After the tour, we had the obligatory British fish & chips for lunch. Then we shopped around for a while, relaxed for a bit, and then hopped on the bus back to Seville.  The length of the trip was just about perfect, and the weather could not have been any better during our rock tour.  Gibraltar will definitely be one of my favorite memories of study abroad.  And I’ll definitely never forget those monkeys.

Portuguese Splendor

Hola!

My time abroad keeps flying by quickly.  Hard to believe there's just over a week left!  This past weekend was my favorite so far.  From Thursday to Monday, my group took a trip from Spain to Portugal. There are many similarities between the two countries, but I might like Portugal more overall.  It was remarkably easy to communicate over there and the Portuguese were really friendly to Americans.

View of Lisbon

The Portugal trip started in Lisbon.  Lisbon definitely has more of an older-town feel with some aspects of a newer city as well. I really enjoyed the view of the city atop one of Lisbon's nicest hotels (we bought drinks on the roof as an excuse to go up)!










One of the highlights of visiting Lisbon was a company visit to Portugal Telecom (PT), an international telecommunications firm with operations in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and other South American countries.   It was interesting to learn how Portuguese businesses operate; surprisingly, there seemed to be many similarities between PT and American technology companies.  They have a team-focused, relaxed work environment that reminded me of operations at Microsoft or AT&T.  They are also building one of the largest data centers in the world to support cloud computing, so PT seems to be keeping up with the times.  I’m excited to see how the company will fare in the next few years.

One of the most impressive qualities I noticed in the Portuguese was their incredible knowledge of English.  At Portuguese Telecom, for example, company reps said that nearly 100% of new hires (many of whom are just high school grads) can speak fluent English.  I found this to be true throughout the country as nearly everyone in restaurants, hotels, and even on the street spoke almost perfect English.  It would be fantastic if schools in the US could also teach languages that well!

The highlight of the Lisbon trip was watching Portugal win

against Russia in a world cup qualifying soccer game.  It was one of the most exciting sporting events I’ve seen, and I was thrilled when Portugal pulled through 1:0.

Lisbon, Portugal's Soccer (Futbol) Stadium

Part of the group at lunch in Lagos

After Lisbon, my group went to Lagos for a few days.  Lagos is probably my favorite city on the trip so far.  It has a coastal feel with temperate weather and beaches that rival America’s best.  Compared to other tourist beach-towns, Lagos is relatively small and never felt too crowded.  The food was also probably the best of the trip. Lagos is even home to one of the world's top 50 burger joints.

The "End of the World"

Another highlight of the Lagos trip was getting to see Cape St. Vincent in Sagres, Portugal - once considered the "end of the world" before the discovery of the Americas. Hard to believe that people once thought only sea monsters were beyond this point.

My favorite part of Lagos, though, was hiking to the beachside cliff formations and admiring their splendor and uniqueness.  The caves, grottoes, and sea arches formed naturally over millennia.  It was quite possibly the prettiest place I have ever seen in my life.

Part of the Ponta de Piedade cliffs in Lagos

With all the traveling associated with this program, several of my friends have asked if I’m actually “studying” at all, and the answer is yes!  I have class for 3 hours almost every day.  On days that I don’t have class, there’s usually a company visit or another class-organized excursion.  I’ve just had to spend my time more productively and to work together with my team to get our work done.  My professor is teaching the class (Operations Management) in a way that requires lots of teamwork and collaborative learning, and much of the course also incorporates case studies and our company visits.  I’ve learned quite a bit from the class so far.  I just wish that all classes were this enjoyable.  It’ll be tough going back to normal semesters. Heck, it'll be tough going back to real life.

Week Two: Italica, Cordoba, Granada, and More!

Hola!  

Hard to believe another week of study abroad has flown by.  Every day of this trip has brought something new, and I love that aspect.

On Monday my class took a trip to ancient roman ruins outside Seville.  Italica was once the site of a civilization of more than 10,000 people.  The intricate architecture and brilliant engineering made it a really fun site to visit.  For being nearly 2,000 years old, it has held up remarkably well.

Tuesday we got to visit the massive cathedral in Seville, the largest Gothic structure in the world and the world’s third-largest church.  It was initially built as a mosque but was converted into a Cathedral and expanded by the Catholic Church in the 1400s and early 1500s.  It is also the burial site of Christopher Columbus.

Later in the week, I got to see a Spanish bullfight.  It was definitely a unique cultural experience, but I am thankful for laws in the United States that protect animal rights.  Bullfights are savage spectacles in which the bull is teased, tortured, and then slaughtered in front of thousands of fans.  According to my host family, Spaniards use “Spanish tradition” as the main justification for bullfights, and to me this reaffirms the issue of blindly following tradition in general.  At any rate, I am glad the United States has a more developed position in regards to animal rights.  

The group took a Friday trip to Cordoba, Spain, which was about a 1.5 hour train ride from Seville.  It was interesting to see the massive mosque in Cordoba and some different Spanish architecture.  The mosque (mostly converted into a church in the 1200s) has hundreds of elegant columns lining the structure.  

This weekend my class joined a group from OU to head to Granada, Spain.  Granada is on Spain’s southwestern coast, about a 2 hour bus ride from Seville.  The bus left from Seville’s train station at 7AM, which meant I had to wake up at 5:30 to make the 6 o’clock bus to be at the train station before 7:00. This entire trip has been full of late nights and early mornings, but it’s been a blast!

The first stop in Granada was the church where Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand are buried.  In this church, we also saw the spot where Christopher Columbus prayed before heading out on his New World expeditions.  It was fantastic.

The highlight of the Granada trip was seeing the Alhambra Fortress. Well over 1000 years old, the Alhambra was absolutely awesome.  It took us a couple hours just to walk through it and see the rooms available to visitors. The pictures definitely don’t do it justice.

Saturday night I went to the gypsies’ part of Granada to see a Flamenco dance show.  Flamenco dancing is sort of like tap dancing but it also involves ethnic music and some storytelling.  Although I couldn’t understand most of the stories because they were in Spanish, it was an interesting experience and I’m glad I went. Most of the group felt the same way.

I’m getting excited for the trip to Lagos and Lisbon, Portugal later this coming week. I've heard that's the best trip of the program!

Adios!

Joseph

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