Category: Europe

It’s the People Who Make the Place

Published on by gwenmorgan323Leave a comment

I genuinely think that my study abroad experience would not have been half as enjoyable if I had not been placed with such an incredible host family.

I remember deciding to live with a family before going abroad, feeling a little unsure, nervous, worried about such a big change, and having to adjust to a new family and a new way of doing things. I remember finding out there were kids in my homestay and feeling terrified I wouldn’t be able to have my own space, as I have never lived with an 11 and 13-year-old before. Would they like me? Would it be hard to communicate with the language barrier?

Safe to say: best decision I ever made.

Another girl from DU and I were placed with a lovely family of four tucked away in the old town of Bilbao, Casco Viejo. Our family includes Ana, our host mom, Sergio, our host dad, and our two host children, Cloé and Enzo.

Ana is the kindest soul. On our first day, she picked us up from the tram station and helped us lug our bags to the little apartment where we would spend the next four months. I remember she fixed us lunch and let us settle in before we met the kids. Cloé is so creative, not only can she paint beautifully, but she has some of the nicest handwriting I have ever seen from an 11-year-old. She and I both love to draw and create, making my roommate and I the cutest clay keychains (mine is a bunny) as gifts during the first month here. Enzo is one of the funniest kids I’ve ever met. He had a lot of medical complications as a baby, having gone through surgery after surgery, and is such a resilient kid. I constantly admire him. He loves soccer, or fútbol, as we call it here. He could go on for hours explaining all the different leagues and teams to me (which I am super grateful he does as someone trying to learn more about sports). We plan on going to a game here together sometime soon and I cannot wait.

Each night we have dinner with the kids and Sergio. Ana recently started a new job helping disabled children in schools, so I usually see her more at lunch. Sergio is one of the funniest and most generous people I’ve ever met. I love explaining American lingo to him even when the language barrier gets tricky, and we have to laugh over silly little miscommunications. Recently, I tagged along with Sergio to one of Enzo’s soccer games, it was so fun watching him play a game on his own team. Before that, we stopped by the supermarket and I got to help Sergio grocery shop. Traveling every weekend certainly takes a toll on you and I’ve decided to make more of an effort to stay in Bilbao and remain present, which includes spending more time with my host family. I love mundane everyday activities like running errands, it allows me to see the little differences between our two countries.

There was one night I got off a bus from Madrid in the dead of night and had texted Ana to let her know I was safe, and planned on trying to grab a taxi since public transport was closed. She immediately insisted she come and pick me up with the car, not wanting me to have to navigate Bilbao when it was so dark outside. I had never been so grateful, I felt like I was home and my mom was picking me up after a late night of travel.

For my 21st birthday, they made me mac & cheese (the Texan way with four cheeses, yum) and got me a necklace along with a sweet card I have positioned above my bed. I had been so homesick that day, so to end it with a sweet family dinner, I just felt so at home. I remember another night we went to grab a coffee and have a stroll for Ana’s birthday. It was so nice to feel like I was with a family again, just getting to hang out and talk. Sergio once brought up some hand weights for me when I expressed my desire for an at-home workout and Ana, a yoga mat. Once, I came home for lunch and was greeted by a can of Dr. Pepper, apparently only found at a certain market that sometimes sold American goodies (again, I cried). They’ve always jumped at the chance to help me find cheap flights, help me book tickets for events, and let my friend hang out for a few hours while she waited for her flight.

Here, our laundry is taken care of, each meal is cooked for us, and we are treated with such kindness and respect. Sometimes, Ana even leaves us little candies on our freshly made beds (I cried). When my roommate’s parents visited, they made the loveliest dinner for them, really trying to incorporate traditional basque cuisine elements. I remember that night her parents asked them why they decided to start hosting. They talked about how important it was to them for their children to be exposed to people of another culture, especially in case they one day want to participate in an exchange program of their own. I want nothing more than to leave the kids with a good impression of the English language, and have them know they always have a home in the U.S.

I fear that I will never be able to fully express my gratitude and love for this family, and how positively they have impacted my study abroad experience. My roommate and I have attempted to show our gratitude, doing the bare minimum such as keeping our space clean, helping to load and unload the dishwasher and more. I try to vacuum any dust build-up I notice in our room and am happy to run any errands for our family. I recently bought them a pink flower plant and brought back some American snack goodies as thank-yous from my parents and I. None of this feels sufficient enough to portray just how much I adore this family.

I am so lucky to be able to say “I studied abroad and had the best experience” and be able to chalk most of that up to living with such kind people; people that I will never forget and fully intend to keep contact with for when I inevitably return to Spain.

Anyway, agur guys!

-GM ❤

The world doesn’t stop when you’re abroad

Published on by rhiannalewisLeave a comment

Hi! If you’re reading this from Denver, know that I am unfathomably jealous of the snowstorm you got last week, and I would do absolutely anything to be in the snow right now. The Athenian fall is…temperate, to say the least. For example, one day last week, it was about 60ºF here and I saw someone wearing earmuffs. Fuzzy ones. So, you can imagine how the Greeks would be doing in Denver right now.

I was going to write my blog post this week on my friend Ruby coming to visit from Maynooth, or maybe my trip to Barcelona to see a friend from high school, or something else. And I am definitely going to write those, and I hope you will read them, but if being abroad has reinforced anything for me it is the idea of authenticity, so I am choosing to be authentic this week. For the (real) adults who are reading this, my next sentence might come as a no-brainer, but I think you’d be surprised to know how many of us are being hit in the face with this reality right now:

The world doesn’t stop just because you’re studying abroad.

(The crowd is…silent!) I know, I know- I was shocked, too. Maybe not shocked, necessarily, but I didn’t have the words to verbalize my feelings until just this week. Obviously, studying abroad doesn’t equate to falling off the face of the earth, but as a student, your perception of reality certainly becomes altered during your time away. It’s not just your school life that changes, though. It’s the whole world.

I’ll admit, without getting too personal, that I was sad to miss voting in person for my first presidential election. As a resident of a swing county in Pennsylvania who cares a lot about exercising my civil liberties, I had way less fun dropping my ballot off at the US Embassy in Athens than I would have if I had voted at home. It was also really, deeply weird to watch the election happen in a time zone nine hours away. Going to do work at a coffeeshop felt insignificant while the state of my whole country was in limbo, and no one outside of my apartment understood that.

Europe isn’t inside of some bubble, either. I was more prepared for this concept coming into my abroad experience, but I think it’s still jarring to see the truth behind it. The day after I flew back to Athens from Barcelona, the airport I flew out of was closed due to flooding. Freak rainstorms in Valencia, three hours south of Barcelona, had moved up the coast and flooded the airport and parts of the city. Spain is still experiencing storms, but I got to experience three crisp, dry fall days while I was there. It’s hard to see that the events that have been destroying the East Coast were not a specific injury, but a global wound. The grass is always greener on the other side, especially if it’s the other side of the pond.

Stepping outside of the room where the fantasy of studying abroad lives was a big and necessary step. The world doesn’t stop moving just because you’re abroad, but because you’re abroad, you should be more tuned in to where it’s going. While I’m here learning about the refugee crisis in Europe (and specifically Greece), I’m relating it back to a similar history of sanctuary cities and immigration in the US. When I am done eating at the cafeteria I see signs encouraging me to reduce my food waste and I am thinking about the new Plant Futures organization on campus aimed at sustainable food consumption. I talk to my classmates about what COVID-19 was like for them and compared it to how I experienced it. I’m working on being where my feet are while also looking at the footprints around me. I’m not in a bubble, I’m in a giant, international community, and that is exponentially better.

The world hasn’t stopped but I’m grateful to be somewhere so charming to chase after it.