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| Toledo, Spain |
Friends and Boyfriend
Moving to Spain means I'll be much closer to my boyfriend and all of our great friends. While my boyfriend and his friends are all from the north, many of them study in Madrid so, from what we've been talking about, I already have a busy social life!
Since I first met all of these wonderful people over two years ago, this has been the longest I've gone without seeing them (seriously having withdrawals) so I'm counting down the days until we're reunited. It's definitely making the 3,000+ mile move easier knowing that while I may be leaving one great group of friends, I'm going to another.
And with this move, I'm also finally closer to my boyfriend specifically. It will be the first year in the past two of our relationship that we've even lived within the same continent, hopefully even in the same apartment.
Unfortunately we're still not sure whether or not he'll be able to find work and live in Madrid with me (*fingers crossed on different prospective jobs*) or be at home in Santander and study something. Either way I'll be content because at least we're closer than we would be in our respective countries.
I'm really looking forward to a year of getting more quality time with my boyfriend and spending more times with our friends. I'm very lucky going into this experience knowing so many people; I have a lot to look forward to in Madrid!
Living in a City
In my previous post about what I'll miss about home I wrote that I'll miss the landscape of the New England countryside I grew up in. While this is true, I am beyond excited to live in a major city for the first time (other than the couple of months I lived with my boyfriend's family). 
I never thought I would like living in the city but after visiting I realized how much I liked the accessibility of everything. Everything was open later, public transportation was more reliable, and it was possible to walk nearly everywhere.
The public transportation is big part of living in the city that I'm very excited about. It's so nice to just hop on the metro or bus and just go where you want without having to worry about traffic, parking, or gas prices. Not to mention in Spain it runs more often and runs later compared to at home. Public transportation in Spain is so accessible, that many of my friends don't have a car or driver's license.
Where I live it's a 15 minute drive to even get to public transportation and it only goes to limited locations. Even though I do like the freedom of my car, I really hate don't like driving. I'm looking forward to a year without having to bother with my car or expensive gas prices. I definitely prefer walking or a ride on the bus, metro, or train over driving any day!
Food
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| Tortilla |
Ahh! Can you tell this is my favorite topic, when am I not talk about food? Spanish food is so different than what most people think it is (aka. it's not Mexican food) and I love all the fresh vegetables and fruits that are so easy to come by.
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| My BF's Christmas Dinner |
Personally my favorite Spanish foods are tortilla (Spanish omelette), the cured jamón, the fresh bread, strong cheeses, and patatas bravas. My past trips to Spain I have been spoiled by my boyfriend's mom or housekeeper and their amazing cooking, but now I have to learn how to cook Spanish food myself (or mooch off my friends' cooking skills...)
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| So delicious looking! |
One of my favorite things about about Spanish food is that it can be so different depending on the region of the country you're in. Being the capital and in a central location of Spain, Madrid will have many options from the various regions. I really want to learn more about other Spanish foods than what I'm used to eating in the north, hopefully living in Madrid will give me that opportunity.
If all else fails I'd be plenty happy to live off of my staple Spanish foods for the year...though I'm sure my friends will stage a jamón and cheese intervention if I keep it up for too long...
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| Wine is clearly a Spanish staple |
Lifestyle
This is definitely something I'm preparing myself for. The relaxed Spanish is such a change from the fast-paced seven-day work week I've gotten used to. There are more vacation days and far less worrying about time schedules; I don't think I've ever seen my boyfriend or his friends concerned about being on time for anything.
Though I think this stress/worry-free lifestyle is a more enjoyable way to live, I'm sure it will take a lot of patience getting used to it for an extended period of time (as well the situations this lifestyle creates with official paperwork and the service industry there).
I think it will be nice having only 16 hours of regularly scheduled work, leaving plenty of time to tutor, spend with my friends, and enjoy my youth (you know, instead of passing out falling asleep at 10:00 pm because I'm so exhausted). This year will be a great experience to gain more time in my career field, to enjoy the Spanish lifestyle, and to enjoy crazy experiences with my friends while it's still socially acceptable (6 am kebabs? I think so!)
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| Day drinking? No big deal. |
Travel
Having this relaxed lifestyle, and the multiple holidays off that come with it, is quite conducive to the next thing I'm looking forward to while abroad: travel. Whether around Spain itself or other countries, being in Europe, especially a large capital city like Madrid, gives me a gateway to so many new countries and cities to visit. 
As a dual history major I focused my studies on Europe so I have a pretty extensive list of dream travel locations I would finally like to see in person. It's such a mind blowing thing that I'll be living in a place that I've previously studied, a place with so much history, and that many of the other countries and cities I've also studied are just at my fingertips. 
I'm very excited to to start my travel plans for the year abroad with my boyfriend and our friends. I've already started talking about a couple of potential trips with some of them, with my boyfriend and I particular to Ireland where his sister will be working the next couple of months (coincidentally in the same area part of my family originated from, yay for multi-cultural heritage!).
Even if I only hit a couple of new countries or cities during my stay I'll be happy. It will definitely be a year of new adventures and new cultures to experience, even if just around the different regions of Spain!
Improving my Spanish
A major part of me wanting to move to Spain is my desire to improve my Spanish. I already have a pretty decent grasp of Spanish, better than I think according to my friends, but I definitely want to work my way up to being fluent (or near fluent) one day in the future.
I studied for Spanish for around 7 seven years between middle school and high school, not to mention my grandma was fluent and I grew up with her speaking and writing to me in it. Unfortunately when she died, my love of Spanish died too. It wasn't until I met my boyfriend years later that I had to try to remember all the Spanish I had forced myself to forget (my family jokes that this was all somehow her plan to keep me with Spanish, very funny abuelita).
At times with my friends though it can be still be challenging to keep up. There's so many of them and they all talk so loudly and all at once that it can often be hard to pick one voice out from another. Luckily they're awesome and realize how tiring and frustrating it is when I'm that lost and will break into smaller side conversations so my head doesn't explode (that's love right there).
The point being, that even spending a few months in Spain the past couple of summers has helped my Spanish improve vastly. Each visit I push myself harder (sometimes too hard if you ask my boyfriend, but more on that later) and my years of Spanish start to come back poco a poco (little by little), according to the BF's papá.
In fact, my speaking and listening comprehension are far better than they ever have been and I know living abroad in Spain for a whole year will definitely help kick my Spanish up a notch. It will be such a great learning experience and I'm so excited to start and keep improving my language skills.
Also, still looking forward to not having two feet of snow in the Winter. Thanks but no thanks New England, you can keep all that...
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