life’s not a paragraph

…..and this leads perfectly into my next topic: my year in spain (i told you i’d explain more later).

as i stated previously, i am a sophomore at suffolk university, but as strange as it sounds, this is my first year at the boston campus. where was i last year?

that’s right. you guessed it. spain- more specifically, madrid, spain, at suffolk’s madrid campus. now you might not have known this but suffolk has three campuses. one in boston, another in madrid, and a third in dakar, senegal. this makes it especially easy to study abroad; hence my ability to study abroad my freshman year. suffolk has a special program that allows a number of freshman to study in madrid for up to two years. i stayed in madrid for only one because i needed to return to nesad to start my studio art classes, but i have a few friends who returned for their second year.

as soon as i decided to study in spain my senior year in high school, people thought i was crazy. a few of my friends supported me, saying how awesome it would be and how i made the right decision, but most just thought i was biting off more than i could chew. “i could never do that!” was the most common response i would get. oddly enough, i wasn’t rattled by them. i knew that this was the perfect choice for me. as scared as i was (yes, i was terrified), i never doubted that i could handle the change.

i’m not going to tell you that my first trip across the atlantic ocean was easy, nor am i going to tell you that my transition to the spanish lifestyle was effortless, because it wasn’t. it was hard. i got off the plane. i took the bus to the school. then i was picked up by my non-english speaking host mother, and i didn’t understand a word. ¡bienvendios a españa! luckily, i got a hang of the spanish accent within the week, and when i couldn’t understand, my fluent colombian roommate (now best friend) would translate.

what i am going to tell you that is that it was the best decision i have ever made. i learned more this past year than i ever have in a normal year of schooling. read all the books you like– there is absolutely nothing like living and studying abroad.

since this post is already getting a little long, ill stop here for now. i just wanted to clarify where i was my freshman year, so when i mention it later, you’re not saying to yourself, “what is the girl talking about?” i’ll probably drop more stories here and there about my life last year. if something comes up that reminds me of a story or if i can relate to a situation i am experiencing now, i’ll probably mention something about spain. unfortunately, i now have a tendency to compare life here to life in europe. my friends say they don’t mind, but in reality, they probably get annoyed. hahaha