I just got back home from spending five months in Oviedo, and I am so grateful to have had this experience! I had a wonderful time, met amazing people, grew a lot, and enjoyed learning about Spanish culture. Reflecting back on my time there, I had an easy time adjusting to my new life there, as well as to my life back home after the program ended. While I understand that most of these blog prompts are about cultural conflicts, confrontations, and misunderstandings while abroad- I didn\u2019t really experience these while in Spain. However, there were a few differences in my life in Spain that I was able to learn from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The biggest adjustment for me while living and studying in Oviedo was the fact that barely anyone spoke English. As someone that was always afraid of making mistakes, I was never confident in my ability to speak Spanish with others. Living with my host mom, and making Spanish friends, I quickly realized that it was ok to make mistakes in Spanish, and that no one was judging me. Instead, they were happy to help me with words that I said wrong. They would even slow down or repeat something if I didn’t understand it the first time, in a kind way. I realized that people from Spain appreciated my effort in trying to learn their language and culture, so they were supportive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I appreciated their kindness and patience, and because of this I was able to grow a lot on a personal level, because I realized that in life it\u2019s ok to make mistakes! This is something that I always struggled with accepting, but I\u2019m realizing that with mistakes comes a lot of knowledge and growth, which is something that I will always remember in the future. By allowing myself to make mistakes in Spanish, I was able to better my Spanish immensely in only a few months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing that initially confused me was my first few times eating out at restaurants. After my friends and I would finish eating, I realized that the waiters would never bring the receipt. At first, I didn’t really think anything of it, because I assumed that they were maybe busy and forgot (this did not bother me by the way, I would just politely ask for the receipt). But then I realized that this was something that was done intentionally, so that diners could enjoy their time chatting with their friends and families without being rushed. In fact, they actually have a term for this, \u201csobre mesa\u201d, and I think that it is a wonderful concept! I came to appreciate this more, as I know that there is a bigger emphasis on family in Spain, and a smaller emphasis on time. This is not really a conflict, but I think that it will help me to be more open minded about the conception of time when working with diverse groups in the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I just got back home from spending five months in Oviedo, and I am so grateful to have had this experience! I had a wonderful time, met amazing people, grew a lot, and enjoyed learning about Spanish culture. Reflecting back on my time there, I had an easy time adjusting to my new life there,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[369],"class_list":["post-20737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oviedo","tag-rollinsabroad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20738,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20737\/revisions\/20738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rollins.edu\/letters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}