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Mantra of the Week: Sevilla, Oktoberfest, and Mallorca!

Published on by Romina DadkhahLeave a comment

Hello readers,

Welcome to this week’s blog! It’s crazy to step back and realize that I have been in Sevilla for over a month now. I remember flying into Spain on September 7th being so nervous about what was to come. Now, I am reflecting my time here exactly a month later and reminiscing about all the amazing experiences I’ve had so far.

My first weekend studying abroad, I chose to stay in Sevilla to navigate my away around the city and meet other ISA students. It’s very crucial to utilize the first two weeks in your home city to get a good understanding of your city and build friendships with other study abroad students. I’ve learned that it’s in those first initial encounters of tremendous opportunity to build a stable circle of friends, because everyone is just as nervous and homesick as you are.

On the second day of being here our program offered an excursion to the Royal Alcazar and the Cathedral de Sevilla. It was so exciting and refreshing to see my Middle Eastern culture being reflected in old mosques and cathedrals. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt seen and accepted. Walking around Sevilla’s old town to get to the excursion sites was like stepping onto a movie set – it simply wasn’t real. Sevilla’s rich architecture and warm people are exquisite and stunning. Every building was covered with arches, arabesque designs, and rich colors of pinks, yellow, and red. The streets are crowded with American tourists, Europeans, and Spaniards. I was shocked with how well dressed and classy everyone looked. Maxi dresses that I would wear to a wedding or a fancy event in America were being used as casual walking attire. I knew instantly by walking through the streets of Old Town and feeling the warmth of the Sevilla sun on my face that I had the right choice to study abroad here, and I was going to love it.

After touring the excursion sites, I took the opportunity to go out to lunch with a few students in my program. I remember trying to take in everything at the restaurant as I tried to grapple with the fact that I was in Europe and how much I experienced in less than 48 hours. I still can’t shake the feeling of being on such a high when I was reading the menu trying to figure out how Tapas worked and practicing how to say my order in Spanish under my breath.

The next day, my friends and I went to the San Bernardo Metro station to get our metro passes for school. The University Pablo de Olavide is a commuter school, and it’s approximately a 20-3o min train ride to the university depending on where you live in Sevilla. I was placed in Residencia housing with 22 other ISA study abroad students and I live 1o minutes away from the Metro stop. It took us 10 minutes to walk to the stop, 15 minutes to get to the campus, and then another 10-minute walk to the international building. Our university was holding an orientation session for all the international students, and it was amazing to meet other international students who were not from the United States. With about 250 students, there were faces from Norway, Germany, Hong Kong, and the United States. Everyone was so kind and welcoming as we got a tour of the school and our class schedules. It was confusing at first to navigate the university and understand how my schedule worked, but my friends and I eventually figured it out.

That night a few friends and I walked along the river in Sevilla and stopped to eat dinner. It was such a bittersweet moment of sitting alongside the river eating Spanish food. I love how in Spanish culture, they take time to eat. They never rush you to eat quickly, and I have not felt self-conscious about sitting at a table for too long. I appreciate how Spanish culture prioritizes nurturing relationships and living in the moment; They use meal times as an opportunity to stay grounded and connected to each other. This is a concept I plan to take with me when I am back in the states.

The next weekend, I traveled to Munich, Germany to see my friends from DU at Oktoberfest. It was surreal to see my closest friends in another European country. It was exciting to hear about their study abroad experiences in different European cities and talk about what they have learned or noticed. Stepping out from the train to the city center in Munich was a huge culture shock. The over-crowded streets and German language showed how drastically different Germany and Spain were from each other. Considering that it was only a three hour flight, it put it into perspective for me how big the United States is and how our states could be countries. Seeing the differences in how Germans dressed compared to Spaniards, and their mode of transportation was also fascinating. It’s not common for Spanish individuals in Sevilla to wear dark colors or designer items. Instead, they wear floral dresses and skirts that are rich with color. However, in Munich, everyone was covered in muted color palettes, designer items from Rolex watches to Louis Vuitton bags, pantsuits, and blazers. The weather was much colder too, and the adjustment from going from 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Sevilla to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in Germany took a minute to get used to.

I returned home from Oktoberfest feeling much more confident with my travel abilities and excited for more travel destinations. The next few days consisted of going to class, grabbing lunch with friends from school, and getting homework done. Then before I knew it, Thursday rolled around and I was packing again to head to Mallorca. My friends from DU planned a girls trip to Palma de Mallorca, and we wanted to spend two days relaxing at the beach, taking pictures, and eating phenomenal food. It was incredible to spend alone time with my best friends and take in the fact that we were on an island with views that you dream of seeing when you look at google stock images and Instagram reels. We grabbed breakfast from a local coffee place, drove to a beach an hour East of Palma de Mallorca (where we were staying) and spent the day in the water while soaking up the sun. That night we went on a party boat and watched the sunset; it will forever be my favorite memory to watch the sunset over the Mediterranean Ocean. The next day we went shopping around the town, ate some amazing Pallela at dinner, and laughed until our stomachs hurt. Then just like that, Sunday came too soon and we said goodbye as we boarded our flights back home.

I’ve been in Sevilla since, and I am excited to reunite with my friends in another European city. Going on back to back trips and living in a house with 22 other people has taught me many things about myself. For starters, I’ve always considered myself as an extrovert (which I very much am), but I never knew how reserved I could be in new environments. It’s been difficult for me to initially open myself up to people that I’ve never met before and navigate a new environment with them. I have found myself often trying to hang out by myself and do activities independently, because it was comfortable that way. However, constantly having to be social has forced me to come out of my shell and break away from my old habits of trying to do everything by myself. Abroad has encouraged me to stay open, to embrace change and new habits, and living in the moment.

Each day that I have been here, I have gained more clarity on who I am and the places I want to go. Next stop is Morocco, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Until our next adventure fellow readers… 🙂

Sincerely,

Romina

Divine Timing

Published on by rhiannalewisLeave a comment

Let me start by offering a disclaimer, which might arguably be the worst way to start a blog post: I am not (necessarily) endorsing the actions I took this past weekend, but desperate times call for desperate measures. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

My roommate Sarah and I made somewhat last-minute plans to hike part of Mt. Olympus last weekend. Sarah is a fellow DU student and was missing the mountains as much as I was, so we put together a trip for the two of us to stay in the town of Litochoro at the base of Olympus National Park. Trains aren’t a reliable mode of transportation here as they are in most of Europe, so we decided to take the bus. To ensure we were purchasing the right tickets, I picked out everything with our ISA program advisor Eugenia, who is Greek. She called the bus company for me to verify that once we arrived in Litochoro Friday night, we’d be dropped off somewhere in town near the bus company’s local branch. Sarah and I got out tickets, booked an Airbnb with a view of the ocean, and packed to see the home of the Gods.

The ride from Athens to Litochoro is close to five hours long. Once we finally got close to the town after what felt like eons on the bus, it was pitch black outside and we were ready for bed. As the driver announced our stop, we packed up and walked off the bus with only one other passenger. In the time it took to get our backpacks on, the bus had pulled away and was heading to its final destination. This is when we realized that we hadn’t been dropped off in the town center, but at a tiny bus stop on the side of the highway. The only thing we could see was a gas station glowing faintly in the distance.

No need to panic yet, I had phone service and plenty of battery! I opened the FreeNow app, which is how you can get a taxi in Greece, and a message read: “Service unavailable in this area!” I open the Uber app, which is slightly less reliable but still worth a shot, and the same message pops up. At this point, it is almost 9:30pm. Our last resort is to check public transportation thinking there is a local bus route still running at this time of night. No such luck. The town center is close to a two-hour walk away uphill from our location. We are stranded in the mountains of Northern Greece.

As soon as this realization hits, we start calling Tess and Eugenia, our ISA advisors here in Athens. Eugenia is (we learn later) in class, so she doesn’t pick up my call. Luckily, Tess answers her phone, and I explain the situation to her while Sarah, understandably, sits on the bench motionless, nearly in tears. Tess is just about as lost on solutions as we are because, honestly, there are no good answers to our problems. As her and I brainstorm, a car pulls off the highway towards us.

“Do you two need a ride to Litochoro? Into town?”

Well, yes, I think to myself. But also, not like this.

We get closer to the car and see a middle-aged Greek woman driving by herself. She asked us again and said she could see we looked lost, which was the understatement of the century. Meanwhile, I’m relaying all of this back to Tess and asking her what to do. After a minute, Tess sighs and gives us the ‘ok’ to get in the car. I share our live location and the license plate number with Tess and hang up the phone, praying Sarah and I are not buckling straight into a slasher film.

The woman could tell we were hesitant and told us that she had two kids of her own, a son and a daughter around our age. She explained that she lived in town with her husband and had an Airbnb that she ran for tourists like us. We learned about where she attended university and where she got her master’s degree, and by this point, we had figured that we were probably more safe than not. When we finally got into town, we drove down a quiet street where we were shown her house, met her husband, George, and got to see her dog. She then proceeded to drive us around for another 15 minutes when we couldn’t find our Airbnb and the host wasn’t picking up my phone calls. When we finally found the correct building and tried to give her a few Euro as a ‘thank-you’, she refused and instead met us both with warm hugs, telling us to come knock on her door if we needed anything else that weekend. After that, she went home to George and we called Tess to let her know we had survived hitchhiking for the first time!

The next day, Sarah and I hiked about 8 miles of Mt. Olympus. It was a surreal experience that I will never forget. I felt more connected to nature and humanity than I have in many other places I have traveled to. When we were finished and went back into town for dinner that night, after verifying the bus schedule and pickup location for the next morning, we talked about how bad we felt that we never got the woman from the previous’ nights name. No sooner had we said that I spotted a small dog with two owners across the small square. It was her! We waved her over to our table and exchanged hugs. She asked how Olympus was, and we thanked her again no less than fifty times. I asked if she could write down her name and address, just in case we ever needed it again. Αρετή (pronounced A-ret-ie) also gave us her phone number, telling us to call or text her if we needed “absolutely anything” while in Greece. She told us that next time we came back to Litochoro that we could stay with her. She was the definition of “the people make the place.”

That is, of course, until she ran back up to Sarah and I ten minutes later with two small gift bags from a shop on the town square. Inside the bags were body lotions made with herbs from Mt. Olympus. “Gifts for you girls,” she said as she stood up with us to take a picture. We tried to tell her that it was too much, that WE should be getting HER a gift, but she wouldn’t have it. The three of us took a photo and said goodbye. We waved at her husband George as they walked home and finished our delicious meal, and left Litochoro on time from the town center the next morning.

Hiking Mt. Olympus is a bucket list activity that I have dreamed of doing since I was a kid. Hitchhiking and connecting with a middle-aged Greek mother, however, was not. I’m pretty sure the second one has become more important to me. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past month and a half, it’s that maybe the Ancient Greeks were onto something. You might be stranded on the side of the highway, looking painfully American, with your roommate in emotional shambles, debating if you should get in a strangers car, but if you’ve made the long journey to see the Gods, they will reward you. You just have to have a little faith in the divine. (And the kindness of strangers)

Sarah, Αρετή, and I at dinner