Hey guys! How are we all doing?
It’s the third week of classes for me, and while being able to understand my teachers has been a gradual process, I can already tell I’m handling these Spanish accents much better than in week 1 – I’ll take the little wins where I can!
Last Saturday I went off on a little day-trip with Best Life Experience to Sevilla, which is roughly a three hour drive from Granada. And while it was an early start and and super late finish, I can say whole-heartedly that it has to be my favourite trip so far! Sevilla is such a fascinating city, and having a local tour guide also helped! We started at Plaza de España – a massive semi-circle shaped plaza which was built in 1929 for the World Fair (yes, that’s right, I did just say 1929). Most of the buildings you see in Sevilla were actually built in 1929 when the economy was struggling and Spain decided to start investing in tourism as a source of income.
We got shown around the city, seeing the Maria Luisa Gardens, the first ever tobacco factory in Europe (aka. the University of Sevilla), the Torre de Oro and finally the Catedral de Sevilla. With these day trips organised by Best Life, often the monuments and cathedrals aren’t included in the price of the tickets, it’s a separate cost. But in my view, when else am I going to be in Sevilla? So of course, I booked all of them – the Catedral de Sevilla, the Real Alcázar de Sevilla and the Setas de Sevilla (which I am going to include links to all three). While the buildings were absolutely fascinating with their histories, their architecture (again a mix of Christian and Muslim), and the views from the Seta was awesome, I think the best part of the day was the people who I spent it with! I had an absolute ball of a time with my two friends, and I think finding a 20 euro note on the ground (don’t worry we checked and no one knew who it belonged to) and using it to buy ice-cream was actually one of the main highlights of the day!
Anyway, I mentioned in my last post that I would talk about advice: what is going on an exchange like?
Well to start off this whole process back around this time last year was step 1) handing in my application on VIA. When you apply you have to propose 5 different universities, because as I have definitely experienced, you won’t always get your first choice. I’ve been wanting to do this exchange to Spain ever since I was Year 10 in high school after one of the girls in my class spent three months in Madrid and came back speaking Spanish very well. I got confirmation of my nomination in January while I was away with Tec de Monterrey on their iWinter Programme in México, I remember feeling absolutely elated because this is what my five years of waiting has been for (thank you COVID for putting my exchange plans on hold).
Fun fact: my original nomination was actually with the University of Oviedo, which is basically on the polar opposite end of Spain to where I am now – it’s right up in the North in the Basque Country. Anyway by April when I hadn’t received any news about applications – because step 2 after you’ve received your nomination is to actually apply to said university, I found out that there would be a change of plans and my nomination got moved to the University of Granada. Safe to say though, I didn’t mind which university I went to as long as it was in Spain! The added bonus of coming here was that I wouldn’t be the only Kiwi in Granada (although I’m proud to say there are a total of two of us in this entire city). I’m pretty sure Oviedo was second university on my proposal list and Granada was third, but I knew I was set on coming to Spain.
I finally got to apply to the University of Granada (UGR) at the end of April: which was a fairly easy process except that because of the change of university, I had to rush to get new course approval forms signed. When I applied to UGR, they wanted me to tell them what courses I wanted to take. Which was a bit rough considering I hadn’t gotten the approval forms back, but I applied for 5 courses: 1) Modern Universal History II 2) Spanish Phonetics and Phonology 3) Spanish: Rules and Uses 4) Spanish as a Second Language 5) Politics and Institutions in Modern Spain. This is because of the different expectations of course loads which the UGR has compared to UoA – which was very confusing to figure out, but I got there in the end. In the end I dropped the Modern Universal History II course, because I decided that I didn’t want to do 5 papers for a third semester in a row, and doing four papers at UGR would still count as four papers back home!
I’m going to say this right now: in Spain, nothing happens in a hurry. UGR was super slow in getting back to me with even acceptance letters. I had to apply for a 6-month student visa, but I had to present all my documents in person down in Wellington at the embassy, and I’d booked the appointment before I’d received the most crucial document: the acceptance letter, because I didn’t want to leave the appointment until the last minute. I think by the beginning of June was when I got my acceptance letter – and the appointment at the embassy was at the end of June.
Luckily, with my Mum being from Wellington, we managed to make the trip to Wellington coincide with a trip to see my grandparents. And while there were a few bumps and hiccups along the way, I got my visa! Which actually means that I don’t have to do anything else now that I’m in Spain compared to the EU students who have to make appointments to get their foreign identity numbers (which sounds like too much admin 😬).
Flights: I booked my flights all as one-way trips, all at different times. 360 recommended that we didn’t book flights before we got our acceptance letters, but since I was making this trip coincide with a holiday in London, I went ahead and booked them anyway. First I booked my flights – Auckland – San Francisco – London, then once I got the acceptance letter I booked my flights London – Madrid – Granada (fun fact: the airport here in Granada is tiny, I flew Madrid to Granada on a little plane that had two seats down each aisle! Almost like a flight to Nelson or Paraparaumu). Finally I booked my flights home, and let me make it clear: the post-COVID price of flights are not cheap at all, it feels like everyone is itching to get out of their countries and travel more. So please take this into account, especially if you feel that you’re on a tight budget.
While pretty much all my flights were delayed between 30 minutes – 2 hours, getting in and out of each country was very smooth. And now that I’m here in Granada, attending classes, seeing friends and going to the gym, creating a routine for myself has been quite an anchor for me. I’m staying in a Halls of Residence that is right next door to my campus – bonus (oh wait, did I forget to mention that it’s on a hill). I think the first three days I was here I walked 15km each day, because I didn’t know how to use the buses, I was still getting my bearings, and living on a hill adds up in those walking points 😂. When I booked my accomodation, things like room cleaning, towel and sheet changing, food from the cafeteria and premium wifi were all extras I had to opt for. I decided I would clean my room and my towels myself, and since my room has a little kitchen attached to it (which I share with Laura, the other Kiwi), I decided not to go for the cafeteria food (I also really love cooking and am so useless at choosing food from a menu). Although I opted for premium wifi, because on the regular wifi I can only connect two devices, and I’ve got three.
However, not opting for sheets and towels meant that when I arrived at 6.30pm on a Friday evening to a room that had been shut up all summer in 40 degree heat, the room came with nothing except for a chair and desk, the bed (which had a mattress protector and a pillow on it), and all the permanent installations a kitchen might have – stove, microwave (no oven 🥺). I had to race out to buy sheets, a duvet, toilet paper, soap, and dinner of course. This combined with the awful heat of the room (and just the heat in general), meant that I got no sleep that night, and Saturday we spent all day walking to the shops and back for stuff and groceries, I was so tired, I was stressed and most of all, I was home-sick. But I knew that this feeling would pass – it wasn’t the first time I’d been overseas in a stressful situation. Travelling is tiring, no matter how much you might tell yourself “I slept 5 hours on the plane”, in the grand scheme of 30+ hours of travelling, 8 hours of sleep is not enough. It’s okay to feel scared, to feel stress, to question why you decided to spend 6 months on the other side of the world away from the comforts of home: because experiencing these things will make you stronger as a person, more resilient to change and more adaptable. Hindsight is a great thing, because I now look back on that first week and smile about all those feelings that I experienced, those doubts I had, because now after spending nearly 4 weeks here in Spain, I have absolutely no regrets as to why I hopped on a plane and travelled to the other side of the world.
For me, this is my first time living away from home, so I hadn’t even thought to bring things like photos to hang up on my walls. However, after going to a few of the events with Best Life – namely churros and tours of the city, the first week was spent making new friends, exploring Granada, and finally when classes started the second week I had a solid anchor to help keep me happy and busy. And now I have met so many people, and I have so many different friends from all over the world and it’s the best feeling ever! However I will admit, having another Kiwi with me helps to keep me grounded.
3 and a half weeks in – I must be used to the heat! Last week it got a bit cooler, roughly 24-25º , but this week it’s back up to 30-31º and I can say, it’s not affecting me as much as it did. Again, I’ll take the little wins where I can. And after talking about all that serious stuff, I know for sure that I’m going to have such an amazing time here in Granada!
See you all in the next post!