Author: Gabi Neuman

Location: Granada, Spain

Before I left on my study abroad adventure, I attended a few meetings last semester to prepare students who are studying abroad this semester.  I was told quite a few times about the culture shock cycle, which if you haven’t heard about, is a theory that describes the four stages of culture adjustment that a person faces when going abroad.

There are different takes on the theory and different terms for each version of it, but in general you have the honeymoon stage, culture shock, adjustment, and then adaptation.  To briefly describe the stages in my own interpretation, honeymoon is just what it sounds like.  You basically are in awe at all these new things, people, places, and all of the cool stuff around you. You can’t imagine how any of these things could be considered anything less than amazing.

A few weeks or months into your time abroad is when the downward slope takes place, moving you towards culture shock or frustration.  In this stage, things that were once new and cool aren’t new anymore and you start to see the differences between what you’re used to at home and how the people act here. You start to get frustrated with those differences.  However, it doesn’t just end there with this sense of frustration.  Gradually you start to adjust to this different and new way of life, potentially being annoyed with certain things, but also seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and the positive aspects of the culture around you.  This moves, then, into the final stage of cultural adjustment which is adaptation.  Essentially in this stage you have become part of the culture you are living in and may even consider it your own.

You might be wondering why I would describe the culture adjustment cycle.  At first when this cycle and these stages were being explained in those meetings I attended, I thought a lot of it was over exaggerated and that nothing in Spain could be bad because I would be traveling all the time, doing things I can’t do in the U.S., meeting new people, and all of that great stuff.  However, now I know that this whole culture shock/adjustment thing is real.  I am not saying that I’m hating anything over here by any means or that I’m not enjoying my time, because I truly am.  All I’m saying is that sometimes you just miss home and things that you don’t think you’ll miss before you go abroad are the things you miss the most.  So to share with you some of the things I personally miss:

• Being able to go into the kitchen to grab a snack
• Having less than 7-8 hours between lunch and dinner because midday hunger is a real thing
• Eating not so extremely late at night and then going to bed an hour or two after eating (hardcore metabolism adjustment had to take place)
• Living close/having access to a gym that isn’t packed with equipment and has a normal locker room
• Real dessert instead of fruit for dessert (which is the cause for the hoard of chocolate in my closet)
• Watching TV that isn’t just Spanish news
• Going to bed early and not feeling like a “grandma” for it because your host mom and host grandma are still up
• My own bed
• Central heating (I knew about this before I left, but who thought it would be a good idea to let the inside of houses be colder than the outside all winter??)
• Being able to communicate fluently and not think about what you’re going to say 5 minutes before you say it
• Not having to ask everyone to repeat themselves 3 times which causes them to give up and come back to you in English
• Wearing sweatpants/leggings outside and not standing out as an American
• The internet working on a regular basis
• Being able to watch networks like Amazon Prime or any other form of American TV
• Free water & bathrooms

Honestly the list could go on simply with little, everyday things that I take for granted at home in the U.S. and don’t have access to here.  But again, in the big scheme of things these are just minor details of what it’s like living abroad and the fact that there will be good days and bad, there will be things from home you miss more than others, and at the opposite end of the spectrum there will be things you wish you could take back home with you when your time here is done.  I know this list might sound like a long file of complaints, but I really just wanted to put life into perspective a little bit.  Studying abroad for me so far has been amazing with lots of high points, but there are also a few lows here and there.  As a personal take away, I would say that studying abroad has not only opened my eyes to the beauty of different cultures around the world, but it has also shown me those things I take for granted and how much I appreciate my own country and where I come from.

Author: Gabrielle Neuman

Location: Granada, Spain

I keep seeing these posts on social media about how January 2018 seems to be never ending.  I’ve been pretty disconnected from what’s going on in the world to make people think that January has been such a long month, but I have to agree.  I’m sure, however, that my reasons for this month seeming to last forever are very different.  January started out with arriving in Granada, Spain, meeting new friends and a new host family, learning more about the Spanish culture and the city of Granada, taking grammar classes, and finally taking two Spanish level exams.  Yet it didn’t end there.  Right after we took our official placement exams to see what track we would be placed into for the courses we are taking this semester, we left for Morocco.  I don’t mean that we had a day to think about the class choices.  No, we got our test scores and left 45 minutes later to embark on a trip to Africa for 4 days.  I didn’t really know what to expect, but from hearing past students’ stories about their trip to Morocco, I had no doubt I would enjoy myself.

In Morocco we met our American guide, Nate, who knows Arabic and has lived in Morocco for about 5 years.  Nate is a pretty awesome dude who knows some pretty awesome people.  For two nights we stayed with host families in traditional Moroccan houses in Rabat.  Traditional Moroccan homes have holes in the floor as toilets which are combined with the shower since running water is precious commodity in the country.  The home I stayed in luckily had a “normal” toilet (not a hole in the floor).  The beds were essentially cushions or benches surrounding each room, but they worked.  Meals in a Moroccan home also consist of everyone eating with their hands out of a large dish in the middle of the table (now that was an experience).  Apparently this happens in Spain too, but it’s not as typical as the Moroccan meals.  The most interesting part of the trip for me, however, was the Hammam.  Hammams are the public Moroccan bathhouses, where one can get their dead skin scrubbed off by a Moroccan woman.  The locals we talked with raved about the Hammam, telling us that when you leave it, you’ll feel the cleanest you’ve ever felt in your life.  Let’s just say it was a first and a last time thing for me, but definitely something you have to do once in your lifetime.

We only spent 4 days in Morocco, but I could continue on and on about it.  Every day, with the exception of the last day we were there, we met and talked with local students and families.  We talked with college students about politics, education, and Moroccan life, walked around Rabat with some of those same students, shared a meal with a farmer and his family in their home, and learned so much about the Moroccan people and their culture.  Before going to Morocco, I never really thought about the people we would meet, their outlook on life, or how similar people across the globe actually are.  After spending 4 days with them, I can confidently say that generally speaking they are no different than many of us.  They have dreams for their country to become a great nation and believe that there is hope for their people, even if their situations currently are not as positive as our own.  I never knew you could learn so much about a people and their culture in just 4 days.

After returning from Morocco on Saturday night, a group of 4 other students and I left for Italy early the next morning to get a small trip in before classes started on February 1^st.  We visited Rome, Florence, and Venice in 3 days.  Needless to say, I’m exhausted but so excited for what the rest of this semester has to bring.  January may have seemed to be the longest month in history, but for me it was a good one.

Author: Gabrielle Neuman

Location: Granada, Spain

If my calculations are correct, I’ve been in Granada, Spain, for about 6 full days now.  You would think that nearly 6 days isn’t enough time to get to know a new place or learn anything about the culture you’re living in.  I beg to differ.  First, I’ve experienced traveling on my own for the first time and how to deal with transportation mishaps.  While it wasn’t too fun at the time, looking back on it now I definitely learned more from things not working out rather than I would have had it been smooth sailing the whole way.  People always say that you learn from your mistakes, which is hard to fully believe when you hear it, yet now that I’ve taken part in that experience, I can vouch for its validity first hand.  About 28 hours after I started my adventure in the U.S. I finally made it to Granada.  Then the facts that I hadn’t eaten for nearly 12 hours and had slept for a cumulative of 4 hours during that 28 hour trip hit me hard.  Plus then there was the lovely aspect of jetlag to deal with.  Long story short, sleep is a beautiful thing and so is the city of Granada.

On Monday I was able to wander my new city for about 5 hours, taking in the different sights and beginning to familiarize myself with the main roads, yet most definitely not understanding where I was at that time.  A major point of success was being able to make my way back to the hotel I was staying at.  Tuesday began the first “real day” when we met all of the other students we were going to be spending the rest of the semester with—people I had only seen on Facebook (if you ever want strangers to become quick friends, send them to a foreign country together—it works wonders).  Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect.  I hadn’t previously known these people yet they were the ones I would be spending a lot of time with over the next 5 months.  I can confidently say after one week that I’m so fortunate to have these 13 other students around me and that I already know that some of them will be lifelong friends, as cliché as that sounds.

Tuesday was also the day that we met our program director and our host families.  One of the first things our program director, Veronica, told us was that she wanted us to get lost.  It was my third full day in this country and I had successfully done this…twice.  Soon after making it to my host family’s home (my host mom and family are both great by the way), I left to make photocopies for the next day of meetings and quickly achieved the “goal” of getting lost.  All is well, obviously, but it wasn’t as enjoyable getting lost alone on small side streets as Veronica had made it sound.

Over the next few days our group experienced the city center of Granada through a tour with our awesome guide and teacher, Jose, along with a walk through Albaycín which has amazing views of the famous Alhambra (seen in the pictures).

There is so much more that could be said about this adventure after only one week, and the pictures don’t do justice to any of the views of this beautiful city.  I have so much to look forward to these next 5 months, even more to learn about the people, city, and culture, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have an endless amount of mistakes to make and learn from.