Yesterday I turned in my last assignment for my class at the University of Granada and am now officially finished with my study abroad semester. The end was wonderfully fun and sad at the same time. IES held a cocktail party on a beautiful terrace facing the mountains and Alhambra, during which everyone had the chance to say goodbye to housemates, friends, professors, and staff. Knowing I would most likely never see many of the people I met this semester was one of the worst things about studying abroad and traveling, and yet it also changed relationships in good ways as well. When you know you only get a few months, days, or hours to spend with someone, it makes the time more valuable and makes you focus on enjoying the present moment with them.

This semester I learned of the word saudade, which in the Portuguese language gives a name to the feeling of being in a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing, especially for something you are currently experiencing. It is the feeling of missing something before it has fully left. As the days until my flight home counted down, I found myself experiencing saudade quite often, especially on buses, passing through beautiful landscapes or listening to really good music. It made it especially hard when the bus ride came after an incredible day out experiencing a new aspect of a city, a new place out in the countryside, or simply learning more about the wonderful people around me.

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I will miss the landscape of Granada, with old buildings, traditions, and celebrations that draw you into the past. The neighborhoods that each have a distinct feeling and story to tell. I’ll miss the hikes up to the various miradores where you can see the city laid out before you, and the sunset turning the buildings pink and blue while their yellow lights blink on a few at a time.

I will miss walking the streets of Granada late into the night, feeling the energy of the hustling crowd around me and observing the mix of students going out for the evening, bright-eyed tourists observing, shopkeepers and waiters attending customers, and older Spanish folks sitting out in the streets with friends for tapas.

I will miss the feeling of talking for hours in Spanish and having the rewarding feeling of being able to express myself better every week that goes by to my classmates, friends, and professors. I’ll miss knowing that I can read academic papers in Spanish just as much as I can have a silly conversation in the park with a spanish friend.

I will miss the excitement of arriving in a new city after stepping out of the airport or bus station. The challenge of navigating a new place through buses, bikes, and walking. Asking for help and finding camaraderie with others who are exploring too. I will miss finding stunning old churches around every corner, hidden alleyways that lead you surprising views, and small shops that serve the most magnificent pastries.

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I will miss starting up conversations with strangers in hostels and making connections despite the language barrier. I’ll miss learning about where other people come from and about their cultures and making fun/being made fun of for how true stereotypes about nationalities are while at the same time finding people who completely break the stereotypes. I will miss the feeling of sharing music with others and discovering music from all around the world. I will miss spontaneously going out to explore with people from across the world who are so different yet so similar in many ways.

I will miss the feeling of waking up knowing that there are a thousand new things I could do this day, if only I had the time to try them.

I knew that coming to Granada would turn my lifestyle upside down and backwards, which was something I was excited about. A completely new way of living is one of the parts of studying abroad that really helped me learn about my new home, open my eyes to new ways of doing things and develop my own tastes in how I want to live. However, one thing I was slightly concerned about was staying active. Much of my social life at home revolved around sports, and exercise was always one of the fundamental things I needed to feel good along with food and sleep. Here are a couple ways that students can stay active in Granada.

1. First of all, I have found that I don’t feel the need to fit in many workouts throughout the week while living here simply because the lifestyle in Granada consists of so much continual movement throughout the day! Walking is the name of the game. Everyone in the city walks almost everywhere they need to go because the city is small with the most important sites close to the center. Walking is normalized and it is not uncommon for people to take a 40-minute walk to work or school every day. On top of that, Granada is not a flat city by any means and many of the prettiest places, namely the Alhambra, Albaicín, and Sacromonte neighborhoods are reached by hiking up many hills and stairways. Just by going out to experience as much of the city as you can you are guaranteed to get about 15,000 steps in most days!
2. Join an ESN group: Though American students aren’t technically a part of the Erasmus Student Network, which is the European study abroad organization, we are still able to sign up for their events, trips, and groups. The program is big in Granada and has all types of groups from volleyball to dancing to hiking to board game playing. The meeting times are usually organized through large WhatsApp group chats. Relaxed club or intramural sports are far less common in Spain than in the US, but ESN allows international students to get together with Spanish students and go outside for some fun activities. 
3. Hiking: Quick hikes are easily accessible up behind the Alhambra and offer beautiful views of the city. Just walking up to the Alhambra itself is quite a workout! For longer hikes, the bus can be taken out into the neighboring communities adjacent to the Sierra Nevada. Ruta de los Cahorros is one very popular hike that includes hanging bridges and waterfalls and is about a 30-minute bus ride from the city.
4. Skiing is also an option in the Sierra Nevada before it gets hot in April and May.
5. Running: Trails are difficult to find close to the city center, so I like to run along the River Genil towards Parque Tico Medina. You can continue past the park on a dirt road or run
   through the park and pass many other Spaniards getting their exercise in too.
6. IES activities: Soccer and Yoga are offered every week and are a good break.
7. Newsletter: Every week an email is sent out by IES staff that alerts students to different activities happening in the city from dance classes to yoga classes to CrossFit. With all the possibilities to stay active in Granada it is clear that the real challenge is finding enough time to try all the options.

The longest break I get this semester will be Semana Santa in the middle of April. Many people chose to go to warm southern countries for this holiday, but I chose to go a different route. Though sad I would miss the impressive festivities that Granada is famous for, I decided to hit three countries during these 12 days: Netherlands, Denmark, and Scotland. 

I left Granada with three other IES students to travel to our first destination of Amsterdam. We were met with a torrential downpour and an onslaught of bikes as a warm welcome. After the initial challenge of the rain, wind, avoiding bikes, and figuring out the public transportation, Amsterdam presented itself as an incredibly lovely place. The canals, shops, and bikes created a charming scene, and the history, art, and alternative culture drew us in. We went to the Anne Frank House, Stedelijk museum of modern art, toured the canals, and visited several parks and farmers markets.

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After three nights we were off to Copenhagen, where I stayed in my sister’s apartment who is studying with the DIS program there. Though the public transportation is great, I chose to navigate the city in the most Danish way I could: by bike. Like in Amsterdam, I fell in love with the biking culture, and renting one for two days allowed me to really see how the city is designed for bikes. I marveled at the full two-lane bike lanes and the third set of traffic lights just for bikes, as well as all the characters I saw riding around from the professional businessperson with suit and tie to the mom with two kids to the tourists like us trying to use google maps and ride simultaneously. The colorful buildings, old palaces and churches, and lovely way of life made me want to stay for many more days. 

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Yet I next had the long journey to Isle of Skye in Scotland. I broke off from my IES group and traveled with my sister and another Whitman student studying in Copenhagen. After six days of intense travel around cities and months of living in a city, I very quickly grew to love the remoteness of Skye. From the very first jaunt around the area to the day we left, I felt as though I was living in a fantasyland. The landscapes were some of the most beautiful I have ever seen, leaving me with a sense of awe that lingered. 

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We took the bus back to Edinburgh where I had two nights before flying home. This was the location I had probably done the least research about and so I came with a very open mind and was surprised in the best way possible. We travelled with another student we had met on Isle of Skye who was flying out the next day just like one of my other friends, so after arriving we immediately went out to discover Edinburgh at night. Over the next day and a half my sister and I went on a free tour of the city, listened to some amazing street music, hiked up to hill overlooking the city for sunset, and went out in the evening with people we met in our hostel. 

The day came when it was time to return to Spain and I was only able to have a decent attitude about returning because I knew that more travel was in the near future. Upon arriving, I was overcome with the surprising feeling of arriving back home —not to another foreign city, but to one that felt comfortable and known. The sun was out, and the trees had somehow all turned brilliantly green while I was gone, and I felt at ease in Granada. 

The Spanish language is what drew most of my classmates here to Granada. The opportunity to live amongst native speakers for 4 months is not often presented. Moving to a country where almost everyone speaks your second language is a funny thing. The language isn’t so foreign that you feel isolated from it with everyone reverting to English when speaking with you, but you also clearly struggle a little with any Spanish person who does speak to you.

The IES program in Granada is made up of entirely Americans, which also creates an interesting dynamic. When in classes, your mind is in Spanish mode, but any activities or travel outside of class with your classmates is in English. I’ve found I go through phases during the week of thinking in Spanish and feeling like speaking is relatively effortless, and then after a weekend I’m in English mode and it takes more effort to express my thoughts in Spanish. One of the biggest challenges for me here is putting pressure on myself to try and put myself in situations outside of the English-speaking IES bubble. The IES program is small and homey and full of wonderful students and staff, and because of this it is very easy to stay within the comfort of the IES community. However, to feel more incorporated into the city, I have tried to extract myself from the bubble of American culture and engage in some activities that make me feel more emersed in the language. Here are a few opportunities students could consider taking advantage of in order to improve their Spanish skills while in Granada:

Sign up for a homestay I’d you really want to improve your language skills. Living with a family will force you to speak much more than living in the same dorm as Americans, even if there are other Spanish students around you. In a homestay, at every lunch that I eat with my host dad, I learn more about him and what it is like to live in Granada. I appreciate that there is a period of time built into the day to have this more relaxed sort of conversation outside of classes.

The clearest impression of what it is like to be a young Spanish person in Granada has come from going up to the University of Granada Cartuja campus twice a week for my Anthropology of Gender class. For every unit, students are given and article to read about feminist theory in anthropology, and tasked with writing a summary as homework. Classes are made up of lecture and class discussions about questions posed by the professor, as well as a good amount of small group work. This group work was a surprise to me, as I had thought that European universities relied more on lecture than anything else. I appreciate it because it involves speaking with the other students in class. Trying to communicate complex theoretical ideas that you don’t completely understand is no easy task in a second language, and neither is reading or writing about them. However, I enjoy the challenge and the solidarity formed with other international students as we struggle together to understand what we’re supposed to be doing. Although at first very intimidating, I am often thanking myself that I chose to take a UGR class. Classes offered can be found here.

Language exchanges are also a fantastic way to practice Spanish as well as meet new people. Almost everyone is trying to learn and so you’ll find a much clearer conversation. People are often foreign and interested in discussing culture and giving tips on living in Granada. The people I met at the most recent one at Lemon Rock, which hosts exchanges every Monday night, included a study abroad student from Germany, from China, a Spaniard from northern Spain, and a programmer from France.

The IES orientation leaders are always organizing events (many of them with other ESN students) that are fun and offer the opportunity to meet other students outside of IES. All are very welcoming and encourage students to engage with their activities around the city.

Meet up with your Intercambio Liguistico. Every IES student has the opportunity to meet up with a Spanish student who also signed up to be part of the language exchange network. By meeting up with them, you will be able to practice speaking, learn about student life in Granada, and get to know their friends.

Go out in the evenings. Granada is full of young people because of the university. Many of the conversations I have had with Spaniards have been at bars or clubs, and while it can sometimes be difficult to hold a serious conversation in these environments, it is a fun way to learn about their lives. Overall, I’ve found that any opportunity I take to simply converse with locals here I have enjoyed and learned from. Though it can be intimidating to take make the choice to go outside your comfort zone in this way, especially alone, I’m always glad that I did.

The past weeks in Granada have been an exciting blur of meeting interesting people, getting lost in a new city, stumbling upon cool bars and restaurants, traveling to new places, planning trips and excursions, suddenly remembering I still have schoolwork, and overall trying to say yes to as much as possible. I’ve now been in this city long enough to give a recount of what an average day for me might be like. Here’s what a day might look like for an IES student staying in a homestay in this city.

It’s Thursday and your alarm wakes you up at the unfortunate hour of 7:45 for your 8:30 Spanish class. It’s about a 12-minute walk to the IES center, and on the way, you chat in Spanish with your housemate about classes, trips, and life in Spain as you try to sneak around people on the sidewalk without getting run over by the cars passing a few feet away. Being in a class of only 10 people, Spanish is fun and interactive with a lot of practice speaking. You head up to the beautiful terrace on top of the IES building afterwards and take a moment to look over the edge at the busy plaza three stories below, and then over the tops of the buildings to the mountains. Friends are chatting, eating, and doing homework in the sun. Before lunch you might have more classes, or you might take a walk with other students to grab a pastry at one of the pastelerías that seem to be on every corner, and then shop for art supplies. After taking three wrong turns and accidentally discovering a lovely new plaza with people sitting out enjoying their coffee and churros, you designate a navigator and finally make it to the art supply store, where you buy a watercolor notebook for your class that afternoon.

You may have a class at the University of Granada that day, for which you take a 30-minute walk to Campus Cartuja set high on a hill overlooking the city, arriving out of breath but energized. The bus is also an option, but for some reason you are no longer phased by the frequent 30-minute walks you take throughout the city. Maybe it’s because with the Spanish lifestyle so you don’t feel like you must rush places, or maybe you just walk so much everyday anyway that you are now used to it. Here you concentrate with all your willpower to understand your professor while also asking the other Spanish and international students around you for interpretations. There seem to be many other international students in your class, and you walk home with a few of them who live close by to you.

For lunch at 2:30 your host dad makes empanadas by hand, and flan for dessert. Chatting in Spanish with him and your housemate, you learn more about what it is like to live in Spain. After lunch is a time for a siesta or homework, given most everything in the city is closed until about when your watercolor class starts at 4:45.

This watercolor session your enthusiastic professor takes you out into the city, and you walk to a lovely plaza where you sit with other students, painting the lamppost you have chosen as your subject. The hour-and-a-half flies by and after dropping off the supplies at the IES center, you walk a few blocks towards home chatting with other students, and then break off to take your separate ways. On the way home you stop at the tiny fruit and vegetable stand owned by a cheery man who seems to know everyone in the neighborhood, and who sells you the best oranges you have ever tasted.

You spend the next hour-ish researching travel plans and doing some homework. You leave at 7:30 for the walk to the Cartuja Campus again, where you play soccer with other IES students. When the game turns a little too competitive for your taste, you chat on the side in Spanish with one of the orientation leaders and watch. Returning to the city center, you grab a Shawarma (middle eastern burrito-type food) for €3.50 with other soccer players and then head home. It’s a Thursday meaning that it’s a “Friday” without classes the next day but depending on if you want to save yourself for the weekend you may just go out for tapas with some friends at a bar nearby and then head back home with your housemate at 11 for an earlier night.

From the beginning of my endeavor investigating potential study abroad locations, I had a feeling Granada was likely where I would end up going. Nonetheless, I made myself keep an open mind and dove into the most fun research project I have ever carried out: Where in the World do I Want to Spend My Spring of 2022?

I spent several months going through the list of more than eighty potential programs and making pros and cons lists. As the analytical person I am, I didn’t want this to be a gut decision though in the end I guess it could have been with the same result! Learning about different cities and countries around the world was far from a waste of time, however, and now I can concretely say what brought me to Granada. Among many reasons, here are a few:

• Language I wanted to be able to speak the language of the local people, because I thought that it would make my integration into the location, culture, and social scene much easier, and I would have a more authentic experience of the location. I have been speaking a relatively low level of Spanish from a young age so even better than going to an English-speaking location would be to go somewhere where I could develop language skills on top of all the other skills I gain from classes and living in a new location.
• Weather It was the midst of winter in Washington when I was making my decision about where to study, and as a beach town girl I knew how much my mood was elevated by sun! So, after weighing the pros of more northern European locations, I steered clear of Scandinavia and other cold locations.
• Beauty This was an important one for me. Everyone I have talked to about Granada says that it is a beautiful city, and even if the dynamic landscape and ancient-looking stone buildings of Granada can’t satisfy one’s cravings for natural beauty, the Sierra Nevada mountains are a hop and a jump away from the city, easily accessible for hiking, biking, and skiing.
• Europe It goes without saying that I want my study abroad experience to be new in as many ways as possible. This meant that I was looking outside of central and south America because I had spent quite a bit of time in Latin American countries already. Europe was intriguing because of the ease of travel between countries (though now maybe not because of COVID) and Spain offered the language benefit as well as its central location.
• Size I wanted to experience city life, but I had also heard that some people had better experiences in smaller cities where they could really get to know their city by the end of their four months opposed to a very large city that would remain a mystery throughout their short time there. With a population of 230,000, Granada seemed like a perfect size with everything within walking distance but big enough to offer most of what someone would want from a bigger city. Additionally, much of the population is composed of young people attending the University of Granada which is one of the best in Spain. This creates an exciting and energetic atmosphere and means the city is accommodating to students.
• Money Spain, especially Granada, is a whole lot cheaper than some other places in Europe and I knew that choosing a location where things cost less meant more opportunities to travel and eat out. In Granada you get free tapas with EVERY drink that you buy. This means you can get a drink and some food (varying from an appetizer to a small meal depending on where you go) for as low as $2.50!

If you are planning on studying abroad, I hope that perhaps my reasons for studying in Granada gave you ideas of what to consider before making your own decision. If not, I hope you learned a little about Granada and perhaps why you might want to visit!