Hello and Happy Halloween! The end of October has rolled around, though I think sneaking up would be the more appropriate phrase. With the beginning of sports, school, and colder weather, October always seems to fly by back home. Those Octobers were nothing compared to this one abroad, though. Although September feels like another lifetime, it is difficult to believe it is already the last few days of this month. My weeks were filled to the brim with long days of classes, evenings of homework, and weekends of catching planes and trains. Collectively, all of my group members and I are exhausted. Something they don’t tell you about having an incredible month of traveling and having your classes in Spanish all day? Your brain and body will feel something akin to Jello-O cups. You also daydream about Christmas and lazy snowy days more than you would have thought. Please don’t mistake my gripes about tiredness as regrets about all that was accomplished this month, however. October was incredibly good to me and makes me excited for these last four weeks of living as a Spaniard before those Christmas daydreams come true.
My month began with searching the streets of Barcelona for cheap pizza after our late-night AirBnB arrival before beginning a weekend of seeing the gorgeous sights of the city. Staying the weekend in Barcelona was the best way to kick off our crazy month of traveling. The four friends I have been traveling with and I were able to bond and test the waters of handling transportation and full days together. Barcelona was an exciting and awe-inspiring first weekend of October; it still feels a bit celebrity-like to say I’ve been to Barcelona… Immediately following Barcelona, we entered the new and intense 4 week schedule of classes. For Mondays and Wednesdays, I had class straight on from 9am until 3pm with just short breaks within my first 3 hour class of Spanish. It felt like high school again, though more tiring because there was no lunch and the classes were broken up less frequently. Although this schedule only happened twice a week, the first couple occurrences were very difficult to get used to. I can definitely say I have learned a lot about Spanish culture though, which has allowed me to feel more at place here in Alicante. Tuesdays and Thursdays were slightly less intense, with Spanish from 9am-12pm and then a 4 hour break before my Tourism class from 4-6pm. Because the bus ride between my house and the school is about 30 minutes long, I always stayed on campus for those 4 hour breaks, having lunch and catching up on homework. Taking 4 classes at once made my homework load increase very suddenly, though it was much more mild compared to the homework load I am expecting once we return to SU. School was a difficult thing to deal with this month since I have not handled that many hours of class straight in a few years. However, it also was helpful in filling up my days and meeting new international students. I may have been drained by 4pm most days, but my brain is filled with more Spanish language and culture than I ever expected. The weekends of October were similarly exciting to the first one; our little group went to Athens, Greece for a long weekend on the second weekend of October, we visited the small town of Altea the next, and Granada with our whole program last weekend. Athens, as you may expect, was incredible. Lots of amazing food, ancient architecture and sculpture, even the bit of rain we had felt a bit magical. Our miles of walking in Athens required a little rest each day, but it was nice to have the chance to recharge and feel like legitimate Spaniards taking a siesta! Altea is a very small but gorgeous coastal town about an hour and a half north of Alicante, and we took the tram line up to walk around for a few hours. Altea had white plaster houses, similar to the islands of Greece, that shone against the turquoise water. The middle weekend of October was not an especially busy one for Haley and I, in terms of traveling, but it was important to take a chance to breathe and explore our local areas. Finally, we had a program-mandatory trip to Granada last weekend that was beautiful. Granada is a famous city 4 hours southwest of Alicante where we visited the Alhambra, an enormous palace and fortress that has stood since 889 CE. Granada was an especially cool and relaxed city that carried that sense of age that made it feel important to just be there. In between Altea and Granada, I even got to have family visit me! My grandparents stopped in Alicante for Tuesday-Friday as part of their 2 week trip through Spain and Portugal, and it was wonderful to see them and catch up. Playing tour guide was even more fun than I thought it would be! This was a long winding recap of a month that was more than I could have dreamed of. Even though class often isn’t fun and homework never is, these past 28 days of October proved to me that every day is a fresh set of hours just waiting to be filled with something amazing. They also proved to me that you can go a lot farther and see a lot more in one weekend than I had ever really believed. There were very difficult days in October, especially for my family, but we have made it out to the other side even with virtual love. I am very excited for all of that love to be in person in just 4 short weeks, but October taught me the lesson of not taking any days or weeks for granted because so much can happen in just as few as 28 days.
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