{"id":40240,"date":"2019-12-09T13:34:04","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T18:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/?p=40240"},"modified":"2019-12-05T13:34:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T18:34:43","slug":"5-thoughts-ive-had-while-studying-abroad-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/2019\/12\/09\/5-thoughts-ive-had-while-studying-abroad-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Thoughts I’ve Had While Studying Abroad In Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"Let me take you through the story of my study abroad experience in Spain so far. Nearly four months have passed since I took the flight from Alberta to Madrid, Spain and to say it\u2019s been a whirlwind is an understatement.<\/span>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n
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  1. \u201cI can\u2019t believe they\u2019re actually letting me into the country.\u201d<\/b><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nI\u2019m not a criminal or anything, but I feel like I\u2019ve pulled a heist every time I step foot in a new country. While Canada has a pretty good global reputation, I know that people tend to judge me by more than my Canadian passport. Unfortunately, I\u2019m judged by my race and my gender as I move through the world. As a black woman, I\u2019ve learned to be wary when navigating the world, and as a result, I was extra cautious when entering the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n2) \u201cThis has been a grave mistake.\u201d<\/b>\r\n\r\nThis thought popped into my mind right after I finished speaking with my mom on the phone in my hotel room. After she hung up the phone, it struck me that I was truly alone and half the world away from my family, the friends I\u2019d developed in university and the comfort of the home I\u2019d created in Alberta. It took many weeks for me to feel enough familiarity with the new residence and the new university for me to settle down mentally.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n3) \u201cHe speaks really <\/i>fast, but I\u2019ve already asked him to repeat himself too many times so I\u2019ll just nod and pretend to understand what he\u2019s saying.\u201d<\/b>\r\n\r\nThe common assumption is that if you can speak a language really well, that you can understand it perfectly as well. This is not the case for me. I speak Spanish infinitely better than I can understand it. This means that I\u2019ll start off a conversation with a Spanish person and then get lost in the middle of it. I imagined that by the end of my fourth month in Spain, that I\u2019d have a better time understanding people, but nope. I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that there are some conversations that non-native speakers will never be able to follow.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n4) \u201cI could live here forever!\u201d<\/b>\r\n\r\nSpanish weather is exponentially better than Canadian weather, and I\u2019m willing to fight on it. Spain is also obviously closer to other incredible European countries. It\u2019s completely possible and not at all unheard of to be able to fly out to Portugal, Italy or Belgium for under 100 euros on the weekend, and \"belens\u201d (Spanish nativity scenes) and happy smiling families. What more could I want?\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n5) \u201cI wish my teachers weren\u2019t so obsessed with class presentations.\u201d<\/b>\r\n\r\nThe professors at my university don\u2019t consider a course done until you\u2019ve given multiple class presentations. It\u2019s not enough to go to class and complete the course work. You must also work over the course of the semester to create a presentation with your classmates. This, however, has also meant that I\u2019ve developed close friendships with my peers thanks to the time we\u2019ve spent together.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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    \nLet me take you through the story of my study abroad experience in Spain so far. Nearly four months have passed since I took the flight from Alberta to Madrid, Spain and to say it\u2019s been a whirlwind is an…\n<\/div>
    Continue reading “5 Thoughts I’ve Had While Studying Abroad In Spain”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>
    Continue reading “5 Thoughts I’ve Had While Studying Abroad In Spain”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":40272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40288,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40240\/revisions\/40288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca\/lifeatuoft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}