This summer, I had the opportunity to take part in the James Madison University internship abroad program. I moved to Valencia, a beautiful city in Spain, where I was able to indulge in their culture, meet amazing friends and ultimately have the time of my life.
This experience has changed me as a person, and will most likely change the course of my future. I want to share my experience and I want to tell my readers that if you have the opportunity to do an internship/study abroad, go for it. And for the others, be patient until this opportunity is created.
Here are some things that I learned from living abroad this summer.
Living in a new country Is A Big Adjustment
Living in a new city, in a country that I have never been to, was a very unique experience for me.
I lived in a little apartment, just outside of the center of the city, with my twin sister and our friend, Izzy. Living together was probably the best part of this experience for me. We had so much fun in our little apartment and we felt so grown up. No one else we knew lived in this apartment complex with us, no people from JMU, no program directors, just the three of us and it was liberating.
The location couldn’t have been better. We were still in the city, but just enough outside of it to feel more like a neighborhood than a city. From our apartment, we would walk to the grocery stores together, walk to our friends apartments and even walked to our internships. It was such a new experience for me to be able to walk every where, rather than driving my car. And I loved it. I am moving to New York City this winter, and it is because of this experience living in Valencia that I realized that city living is the life for me.
Living in a new country was exciting, fun and difficult. Valencians speak Spanish. In fact, less than 30% of the Valencia population know English, but only few can speak it fluently. I found it very rare to find anyone who understood any English at all. This made it incredibly difficult to do simple activities such as take the bus, order food in a restaurant, or shop in a store. It was a huge adjustment for me because I moved to Spain hardly knowing any Spanish at all. This is also what made this experience so unique for me. I have never been in an environment where no one spoke the same language as me. It was nerve-racking, but also also taught me a lot. Not only was I able to learn a new language, I was also able to fully immerse myself into their culture.
The Valencian way of life is very different than the way of life in the United States. One example is that they don’t eat dinner until 8pm. And when I say 8pm, I mean no restaurant in the city opened until 8pm. Just picture a group of confused Americans in their early twenties wandering around a foreign city, hungry and not being able to find an open restaurant anywhere. This was hard to adjust to during the first week in Valencia, but we became used to it and honestly, eating late at night is so much better than eating at 5 or 6pm. I learned that Europeans really value a strong work/life balance. They work to live, rather than living to work. So, after 8pm is when Valencia came to life. Rather than eating dinner early so that they can get to bed early and wake up early for work, like we do in the US, the residents of Valencia would stay out all night, eating and drinking with their friends throughout the night. I learned to love that way of life.
You Might Learn lessons the hard way
Valencia, Spain is very different than the United States. And honestly… this may have gotten me and my roommates into some trouble at times.
For example, during our first week living in our new apartment, my roommates and I got LOCKED ONTO OUR BALCONY. Picture this, me and my friends are locked onto a balcony, 5 stories in the air, around a community who does not speak English. We were panicking.
It turns out, the balcony doors in Spain lock automatically when they are shut and they do not have door handles on the outside. This is definitely something I wish we had known before moving. Long story short, we called our landlord a million times, who in turn, came to rescue us 3 hours later. And if that experience wasn’t traumatic enough, when she let us in, she then started to lecture us about our air conditioning being on. So lesson number 2, they do not like using air conditioning in Spain. Cool, got it.
If I told you guys every story where my roommates and I learned the Spanish culture the hard way, we would be here all day. Like the time I learned the metro is not the same as it is in the US the time that the metro doors slammed onto me as they shut and I had a bruise on my butt for 3 weeks… Or the time I learned that Spanish air conditioning units cannot get very cold when literal full-sized ice cubes pelted me as they shot out of my air conditioning unit.
Trust me, I have more stories but I’ll stop now.
You Will Be Bonded with The Friends You Make Abroad For Life
The friends I made while living abroad are truly what made my experience so amazing. My internship abroad program had about 20 James Madison University students in it. And this experience bonded us.
We would grab dinner together, explore the city together, travel to new cities together, and grab drinks at the end of the night together. The friends I made will be my friends for life, and the memories we made together will stick with me forever.
The “You Only Live Once” Mentality
We only live once, so have fun.
My friends and I would always say “we only live once and we will never be hotter or younger” while we were abroad.
Living abroad this summer showed me what it is like to truly have fun. I learned to never say no and to take risks. I tried things I have never tried before and did things I never thought I would do. Living abroad is the time to take risks and experience everything. This YOLO mentality truly allowed me to get the most out of this experience. It ignites the idea that there is always more life to live because life is short.
Like the time my roommates and I said YOLO and booked a 4 day trip to Ibiza during our time abroad. Those 4 days ended up being the best 4 days of my life.
I will never forget just how much fun I had in Spain. It made me realize that I needed to change my way of life, even after returning to the states. I have taken this mentality with me since my experience abroad and it has changed my life. Take risks, try new things, see new places, experience it all, and take it all in.
