Final Post: Homecoming

I'm writing this post exactly one year after I left for Spain: August 24th. I’ve been back in the U.S. for almost three weeks now. Door-to-door travel from Granada to San Anselmo took 30 hours, but everything went perfectly smoothly and I was rewarded at the end by a burrito with all the fixings that my very wise parents brought to the airport.

My feelings were mixed as I left Granada. I was itching to get out of there by the end, since only one friend was left in the city and temperatures surpassed 100 every day. But I didn’t know if I was ready to come back home, after having just completed the most amazing month traveling through Europe. I almost envisioned myself purposefully missing my flight and setting up camp in an entirely new country next year—Study Abroad Round 2—but I dutifully boarded (and was grateful for doing so when I saw the list of amazing comedies to choose from on the plane).

Day after day I kept waiting for the reverse culture shock to set in. Sure, I didn’t study in a remote village without electricity or even a third world country, but surely I would feel some difference being back! Not the case. Upon arriving home I felt that I had been gone a solid three days. 72 hours. And I still feel that way, three weeks later. Nothing feels altered, nothing feels foreign. Granada seems like a distant memory. Looking back, though, I felt hardly any culture shock when I first moved to Spain either, even while others were struggling with homesickness or changed schedules or language barriers. Which either means I’m an insensitive freak or adaptable. I’ll go with the second.

I don’t talk about my experience very much, as people usually skim the surface with general questions like “how was it?” and then change the topic. I don’t mind, though. I know what Spain did for me and I don’t really find the need or desire to express it to everyone—anyway, they can just read my blog! I have been trying to speak Spanish a lot with bilingual friends or people I meet around here, although 100% of encounters have started with the other party commenting on my thick southern Spanish accent. Little by little I might have to lose the lisp, the ‘vosotros,’ and maybe add some of those dropped –s’s back in so people don’t ask me to clarify. But I’ll always speak grana’ino at heart.

I haven’t spent a summer at home since I started college, and although I had strong reservations about staying five weeks here after Spain, I have to say I’m loving it. Catching up with old friends, running or hiking every day, enjoying 75° weather in SUMMER. . . . why did I ever leave Marin in the first place? And great news, I just went to the dentist and I still don’t have any cavities, even after a year of chino candy, gelato, sweet sangria and a manual toothbrush. Here’s to good genes.

In a job application I recently filled out, I was asked to explain how EAP changed me. Here’s my answer, and hopefully it sums up my experience well. Thanks for following the blog; it’s been so much fun updating it, even though I’ll probably read it years from now and think what an idiot I sounded like in so many posts: “Today we went to 6,123 rounds of tapas and beer. Spain is just sooooo great!!”

How did your experience abroad change you?

After being back in the U.S. for only two weeks, I notice that I got a little tanner from that strong Spanish sun, a little wider from a year’s worth of tapas, a little more stylish after being stared down at one too many times while wearing yoga pants to class. But luckily the changes go far deeper. Studying abroad gave me a new perspective on being the underdog academically, struggling to write college-level papers during the first semester when my vocabulary was perhaps that of a grade-schooler. My time spent there changed me linguistically, as I can now add Spanish to my repertoire of fluent languages. It strengthened me emotionally, as I’ve never been on my own in a foreign country for such an extended period of time.

But what I’m most excited to explore are my changed ways of thinking and behaving after spending the best year of my life in a southern Spanish city. My will to become fluent made me more outgoing, as I would start conversations with anyone I could, simply to practice: a new father holding his baby girl in Plaza Bib-Rambla; taxi drivers with such strong Southern accents that even my best Spanish friends had trouble understanding; my history professor during office hours, who seemed more inclined to discuss the best tapas bars rather than exam papers. I made such good friends with a pair of elderly women while listening to street music in Barcelona that they insisted on getting my U.S. telephone number so they could call me at Christmas. I lowered my guard and let a swarm of strangers into my life, and in return I improved my language skills, my appreciation for Spanish culture, and my sociability, What once would seem like impossible risks, like couchsurfing or hiking 70 miles through Northern Spain alone, turned into incredible possibilities to converse and make new connections with people from all over.

I learned what it is to be a part of two cultures, and to let myself blend into the new one while maintaining much of the original. After the initial shock of entering such a laid-back lifestyle—no more student clubs, no part-time job, even the classes were much less demanding—I found new ways to become involved, like tutoring two little boys in English twice a week, and helping a policeman pass his English oral exam. But after a few months in Spain, it became clear that the typical American way of thinking—that if you’re not moving, then you’re a waste of space—simply doesn’t apply. I came to appreciate the beauty in slowing down and spending 3 hours drinking a coffee with friends, or taking a siesta during the middle of the day if I felt so inclined. The culture is brimming with this rich social tradition, one that places such importance on family that stores close for a three-hour lunch break. I will be forever grateful for my time in Granada for infusing me with some of these same values.

But perhaps more than anything, studying abroad made me more self-assured. More assured that I can in fact successfully negotiate electric bills, final exam topics, and missed trains in a foreign language. More assured that leaving one home always means I’ll find another. And now back at home, more confident than ever that I am finally studying the right major at UCSB, after trying out several subjects and interests over the past two years. Every day in Granada I was challenged and inspired to improve my language skills and put them to good use. The linguistics nerd inside of me enjoyed even a professor’s droning monologue because it meant that I could fixate on how and why and when he paired certain words together. Each time I would successfully employ a new idiom or the subjunctive tense I would internally celebrate, as though I had just done something much more significant than produce a phrase that actually made sense. 

I know now that the relationship between language and culture truly inspires me. My time in Spain steered me toward my true academic passion after spending the better part of my education succeeding academically but without any direction. As I enter my senior year and think about what comes next, this new direction couldn’t come at a more opportune time.