“Nick’s Feelings and Conclusions about Living Abroad in Alicante, Spain for 4 months.”

Ok first off:

I’m going to really try not to try to explain my feelings and conclusions about my semester abroad by replacing what I actually feel and think with vague clichés to define what I was supposed to feel and think after living abroad for four months. Too convoluted? OK, we’ll see how it goes. It's doubtful I can even stick to my own advice. Probably better to stick to some facts to support any waxing philisoph I’m throwing in there, so I’ll try a list format. I’ll call it “Nick’s Feelings and Conclusions about Living Abroad in Alicante, Spain for 4 months.”

1. I’m proud of the amount of Spanish I’ve picked up. That being said, I could’ve improved more with a different scenario. Different scenario would mostly entail a hell of a lot less interaction with my American friends and a hell of a lot more with Spanish people, their movies, and their literature and periodicals.

2. I’ve made a few good friends here and get along real well with everyone in the group. Definitely drew a good hand.

3. One of the issues I have when thinking about wanting things like ‘study-abroad,’ backpacking (the gap year style Europe/SE Asia/S. America variety), and ‘traveling’ in general is that I feel like I’m really only thinking about living out the ‘bourgeoise dream. ’ The ‘adventurous’ goals of the small percentage of the world that can afford such goals that is.

4. There was a lot of downtime this semester due to school not being too difficult and me not being a part of any organized sports team. People use their downtime in different ways. I successfully instigated a reading binge for myself and read more books and articles these past four months than I have in any period of time since before I had my license (when social things became very easy to organize reading pace slowed down significantly). I think reading books of all genres and eras and also trying to read about different perspectives on current events (globaleconomictrendanalysis.blogspot.com is a decent spot to start if you don’t know where to look) are important things. I’ve always thought these were important things and Alicante has given me a bit of a break from a life of ‘constant socializing’ mostly because I’ve been living in a house with a 65 year old Spanish lady.

5. Expectations before going abroad are always going to be way different than what the experience actually is. This can be evidenced by what people bring. For example, I was convinced that it would be totally unstylish to wear sneakers in Spain. I believed I would be going out until 6am every night with a large group of Spanish troublemakers who also played pickup soccer. Thus, I didn’t bring sneakers. A little philosophy for you right here: if you are something at home, like a kid who likes going to the gym and running, you should not abandon that thing. I got myself a pair of sneaks after a couple of weeks and life improved.

6. I think my ability to ‘go out’ and actually have a good time has been steadily improving in Alicante. Going out when it’s not just me and close friends and acquaintances is something that has never given me good vibes, but I’m getting more into it. A good skill to take back to CU.

7. Going into study abroad I would’ve been far more gung-ho about doing things like traveling somewhere where I can’t even converse with the locals.

8. Communication among people about their lives is something that I’ve increased my belief in since being abroad. I think I’ve actually improved my English from trying to speak about ‘real-ish’ things (more real than what I had for breakfast or how drunk I got last night at least) when I’m passing it with my American friends.

9. I’ve changed in four months. But I change every four months.

10. I’m fascinated by how easy it is to let your life go in a given direction without giving much thought to that direction. Last night I had one of my few dinners out of the house and I let myself be led halfway across Alicante to a MALL where we took the escalators to the third floor, entered a restaurant where you order mini-sandwiches full of processed meat and condiments, and sat on a stool. The sandwiches were not sufficient in terms of quantity or quality. Etc.

Nick