Come to Granada with me!

Hey, hey! For those of you who might not know me, I’m Abby, one of the staff writers for the Old Gold and Black, and I’m currently studying abroad this semester in Granada, Spain.

Now, typically staffers for the OG&B wouldn’t be working during their time abroad, but I thought it would be a fun idea to bring y’all along with me a little during this semester away from Wofford.

Study abroad rarely goes completely smoothly for anyone, and I ran into some trouble before I even left the United States. My flight out of JFK to Madrid got delayed by two hours mere minutes before I got to the airport, which meant I was going to miss my connecting flight from Madrid to Granada.

I felt lucky when I went to check in at the desk to check my bag and try to figure out getting from Madrid to Granada and I was told that the airline had already rebooked the flight from Madrid to Granada to one I would be able to make.

When I got to Granada, I was stunned by the city’s beauty. Not only is the architecture beautiful, with grand cathedrals and mosques, but the mountains in the background wherever you turn make Granada an idyllic place to study abroad.

I was nervous to meet my host family, feeling unsure about my Spanish skills that I would need to communicate with them and wondering if I would be a good fit for their family. All my fears washed away the moment I walked into the apartment building where my family lives.

My host parents greeted me with the biggest hugs and helped me get my bags up to their apartment, where I was able to choose which room I wanted to stay in for the next four months. And I was relieved when I was able to understand what they were saying and could express myself to them as well.

I had lunch with my host family before going to meet some of the other people in my program for a quick tour of Granada led by our peer advisors, who are University of Granada students hired by IES Granada to help out students in the transition to studying in Spain.

We ended the tour by getting tapas together, after which most of the IES students decided to go back to their housing to go to bed after a long few days of traveling. Always one for a rally though, I decided to stay out for a bit longer with the peer advisors and a few others to go for more tapas.

Tapas are small plates of food that are bought or given when you buy a drink at a restaurant or bar while in Spain. Granada is likely the best place in Spain to be in for tapas, since it’s one of the few, if not the only, cities in the country that has free tapas when you buy a drink.

The past week and a half in Granada has been dedicated to orientation to IES and the city, which has consisted of many meetings with IES staff, language courses to refresh our memories after the summer, a day trip to the beach and many, many tours around Granada.

One thing that I wasn’t ready for as part of our orientation was how much time we were going to spend touring the city, and the fact that most of the places we have been walking are uphill. I’m most definitely not built for this type of cardio, but the gorgeous views have definitely been worth it.

Through the orientation, I’ve also met so many amazing people in the program that I’m so excited to spend the next four months with. The people in these study abroad programs can help make or break the experience, and I definitely think they will help make it amazing.

That’s all I have for now, but I’m excited to bring you all along for when classes start and when I start traveling around Spain and other countries in Europe. Hasta luego!