I am forever grateful for this experience and still can’t believe I am here in Valencia. This trip has been a real adventure for me. Being given the opportunity to travel worldwide is something I never had anticipated before in my entire life. I experienced my very first plane ride ever, and I must say that while it was an exhilarating first time experience, being stuck on that thing for 8 hours was slightly torturous.
Initial communication with my host family was extremely intimidating. I do not speak any Spanish and they do not speak any English. Luckily, my four semesters of Portuguese greatly benefited me. Thank goodness for similarities in romance languages! Communication is definitely a struggle, but figuring out ways to get the point is extremely rewarding.
The city of Valencia is absolutely beautiful. I love going to the beach and enjoying the outside weather every second I can. Different parts of the city have very different atmospheres, which I find to be more and more surprising every day. Some parts are historical and have an antique feel to them, while others are very new and modern looking. The vast differences make the views of the city the least bit tiring.
Today we volunteered at a school for our service learning activity. While I wasn’t able to communicate much in Spanish with the children, they made sure to make fun of the English speaking accent I had with my pronunciation of the Spanish words I actually knew how to say.They were very intrigued by the fact that I couldn’t speak their language. At one point, there were six kids around me pointing to my jewelry and tugging at my clothes saying “Cómo se dice en Inglés?!”, meaning “How do you say in English?!” It made me laugh that they were so fascinated by the language barrier.
My roommate and I live in one of the furthest homestays in the city, and we both unfortunately may be the worst two people on the trip with directions. We have gotten accustomed to getting lost all the time, but we have come to think of it as more of a constant adventure than anythingnegative. I mean, if I have to get lost somewhere I am more than okay with it being in Spain. Because of us getting lost so often, we have seen parts of Valencia that are so far away I am sure nobody else has gotten the opportunity to see.
I have been thinking about life in general on a much deeper cultural level. Being immersed into an entirely different culture makes you much more aware of both your own culture and other cultures, and increases your grasp of the world around you. I feel like I have become a much more confident and independent person because of the challenges I have come across in the duration of this trip. I truly cannot wait to see what the remainder of this trip has in store for me.
At the paella farm
The farmer throwing lettuce for us to catch
The streets of downtown Valencia
