Author: Hayden Reidy

Although I have only been studying abroad in Spain for three months,  I will never forget all of the fun memories and the people who shared them with me.  I have learned a lot while experiencing the great culture of Spain.  Now that my time here is coming to an end, I really wish I could’ve stayed longer. However, am also happy that I will soon see my family and friends in the United states again.

Spain is a marvelous place filled with great people, great places to see, and let’s not forget, great food! Everyone is nice, outgoing, very sociable, and especially giving.  This has been one of the best experiences of my life. I had the opportunity to make new friends in a new country and learn a new language.  Ironically,  I am usually pretty shy around new people.  I really wasn’t sure how hard it would to be to adjust, especially with a different language thrown in.  After arriving in Spain and meeting people, I knew this was something I didn’t need to worry about.  Everyone  was so welcoming, from the start I felt accepted.  Everyone wanted to make sure that I was doing well.  I have never met so many people who all would act this way to a complete stranger.

During my last few days in Badajoz I was surprised at all of the gifts I received from my friends and family, it was really special.   It is amazing how in three months we have grown so close.  One of my friends on my basketball team gave me a Jersey of a Spanish player, and my team gave me a team poster signed by everyone.  On my last practice they had a going away party for me. Then we had another party in English class and all the kids in my class signed a Spanish flag and gave it to me. The kindness and generosity of the people is really part of the Spanish culture.  If you become friends it is not temporary, it is for life and they will do anything for you.   My family I stayed with gave me a picture of all of us and wrote “you will always have a place in our hearts”.  This really got me and was truly the best gift of all.  I now see them as my second family and I know if I truly needed them I could count on them. I know they will welcome me with open arms when I visit again.

I have grown a lot through this experience in ways I didn’t expect.   I realized that if you put your mind to something,  you can do anything.  I found it difficult to work through the frustration of trying to learn in a country where I barely spoke the language.  In the first few days, not being able to understand anyone or anything,  I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I thought I may have bitten off more than I could chew.  However, I learned that keeping a positive mindset and believing in yourself helps deal with adversity.  Constantly trying and sticking with it, I was able to do something I never thought I was capable of.  Without a doubt, this journey has been one of the best experiences of my life.

I would like to thank everyone I met during this amazing trip.

I thought I was just going to learn Spanish, instead you changed the way I see things.

In the Spanish culture, satisfaction doesn’t  come from the amount of money you have or the amount of expensive things you own;  it comes from giving happiness to the people around you.  It is the most satisfying thing that anyone could ever hope for and its contagious.  I would like to thank my parents in Spain and my new brother Javier for welcoming me into your family and everything you have done for me.  I would also like to thank my parents for giving me this incredible opportunity.  I hope to go back soon. VIVA ESPAÑA!

It is crazy to think that I only have one month left studying abroad in Spain! I wanted to reflect on the things I have done these past two months, from the hill climbing, to trying to learn a language in three months.

In the first three months it was really hard to adjust to the new culture. I had a hard time converting from English to Spanish, but as I kept trying it began to become easier and easier. It seemed as if the people started speaking slower and I started to understand bits and pieces of sentences. Although, I still am not able to understand a full conversation, it is simple because they use words I have not learned yet. Through the whole journey everyone has offered support and it seems everyone here wants to see us succeed and learn Spanish. I have started thinking in Spanish and sometimes I can’t think in English.

Last week Javier and his friends and I took a “short cut” through some fields so we could get back to Javier’s house quicker, but it ended up being longer and it took us two or three hours to get home! This would’ve been very frustrating except the view was spectacular; it made me feel like I didn’t care I was lost. We climbed hill after hill and stumbled upon some old houses and other weird things, but it seemed the more we climbed hills and trudged through tall grass the view just got better and better! We finally found Javier’s neighborhood and it was kind of upsetting because I didn’t want to leave the beautiful paradise we had found.

Since being here the saying “Carpe Diem” has really meant a lot to me, When I first got here it was crazy to think I wouldn’t see my family for ninety days, but I told myself “Carpe Diem” or  (seize the day) and tried to take every moment to learn something. Trying to improve myself, to prove to myself that I can do this, to learn as much Spanish as I could in the three months I am here. When I looked at it as “wow, I have ninety days,” it was a bit overwhelming, but when I really tried to make the best out of any situation and have fun no matter where I was it made the days fly and helped make memories that will last a lifetime, memories that I can tell my kids when I am older.

Spain has been a blast and one of the best things I have ever done in my life! Although I am sad that this great experience must come to an end in only one month, I can’t wait to tell my family and friends about the life I lived here and everything I experienced.

Spain has been going great and although there is nothing new, I thought I would blog about the last three weeks of my study abroad program. Basketball has been great and our team is undefeated so far, I have started taking Spanish classes to improve my Spanish skills, and I have tried many new and exciting foods.

Basketball has been great, we beat our rival team yesterday 71-50 and I had 10 points and 5 rebounds! We practice Monday-Wednesday and Friday from 9:30 – 10:30 and the coach is really funny, but also very strict. My team is very nice and everyone is very funny, and even though the practices are hard everyone manages to have fun.

Today I will start taking Spanish classes with Chase and the other American that came to Spain. I hope this will help me get a better understanding of language and help me learn it faster.

There are so many foods here it is unbelievable! Last week I had cooked lizard meat and I expected it to taste very bad, but when I tried it I really liked it, it tasted like chicken. I also went to Portugal to eat with Javier’s grandparents and I had fish, but it was the biggest fish I had ever seen and it was cooked and still had the spine and tail! But it was the best fish I have ever had in my life and I would gladly eat it again.

That’s all that has happened in the past three weeks; hopefully the next few weeks will be more eventful. I will be blogging after my next adventure or experience in Spain.

A lot has happened during my exchange program in Spain since the last time I have blogged. I left Madrid to meet my host family, I started school, and I have made a lot of friends, started playing on a basketball team and I got a job. It all has been a bit overwhelming but it gets a little easier every day.

I was really nervous sitting in the train far Madrid to Badajoz; I kept wondering what my host family was going to be like. I had talked to them via e-mail and I had seen pictures, but I kept wondering if they were going to be the way I imagined them to be. Finally after 5 long hours we arrived in Badajoz, as we stepped off the train we were greeted with a welcome sign and both families coming to greet us. We then all drove to our houses to get settled in and I didn’t expect it to be as nice as it is. It is a three level house, not including the garage, and out back there is a basketball hoop and swimming pool. There is a Play Station upstairs and a TV in my room, and it seemed the more I saw of the house the better and better it got. My new parents for three months and my new brother were very nice and caring; it made me feel very welcome in a strange new environment. It also helped that my brother lives 3 minutes away and my parents said he can spend the night whenever I want.

A couple days later school had finally begun and let’s just say I was only a little nervous. But as soon as I entered the class room that all went away, everyone kept saying hello and were very friendly. Learning was hard because I didn’t understand anything anybody said, it was really frustrating. Luckily the teachers and students were really nice and were willing to talk slower and use words that I could understand. The kids in school seem to be amazed how tall I am, which is really funny because I have never been the tallest kid in school, but now I tower over almost everyone.

I have started practicing with the local basketball team, and finally I am one of the tallest kids. Everyone on the team is very nice and very funny, every time we practice I always a fun time. Finally I have gotten my first job, I am teaching little kids English in a school/academy. Now my dad has been calling me Professor Bryce, which I find really funny!

I will be blogging more now that I have settled in and gotten more comfortable with my new life.  I will keep you updated on my later endeavors and adventures.

featured photo from Attitude is Key  

As I took off out of JFK Airport yesterday, I found myself staring out the window and thinking that in seven hours my brother and I would be in a totally different country without our parents. I thought that maybe I was in a little over my head and how this was definitely out of my comfort zone. As I sat looking out the window watching New York fade into a speck, which was soon swallowed up by the night, it dawned on me that going to Spain to study abroad for three months was actually happening. Before it was a distant thought, now sitting on the plane it still felt surreal, but I knew that we were actually heading to Spain for the experience of a lifetime. I went to sleep since it was very late by the time we took off due to a unfixable problem on our first airplane. I soon woke and looked out the window to see where we were, I was greeted by the rolling hills and rivers traveling through the great country of Spain.

We arrived at the airport in Madrid and met up with all the other kids studying abroad throughout Spain. Soon we were all loaded up in a small Mercedes Benz van and were on our way to the hotel. We arrived at the hotel in no time and were soon taking our bags up to our rooms. Before I knew it, I was eating a delicious lunch which consisted of fried peppers stuffed with fish, a hamburger and fries, and finally for dessert I had some fruit. The food was better than I expected, it was amazing.

We took a bus to the biggest park in Spain and on the way we marveled at the statues and architecture of the buildings. We arrived in the park and I was astonished to see so many people, they all were rollerblading, skateboarding, biking or just hanging out. We looked at sites and statues in the park, but by far my favorite was the Splendide Hotel. It was a building of all glass and was bare on the inside except of a few chairs and books which were attached to the chairs.  We couldn’t figure out what the purpose of the building was so we asked someone working there and soon we found the answer. The books described a hotel, but I was up to you to fill the bare walls and space with anything you could imagine. The hotel was the canvas and your ideas and imagination painted it.

Our park tour soon ended and we were on our way to dinner. We stopped at a place that served calamari sandwiches, along with many other foods. Everyone ordered the calamari sandwich, except for me; I ordered a sandwich with tortilla. A tortilla in Spanish culture is a food which consists of eggs and potatoes and it’s a type of omelet. During our dinner we learned how to tell if some restaurants are better than others. If there are napkins or trash on the ground it means that that restaurant has better food. The trash indicates that more people each there, which means its foods’ quality is better.

I feel as if I have been here forever but it has only been ten hours. I will keep you posted on my future adventures in the country of Spain.