It is hard to define what a “best day” abroad means, but to me, a good day is one where I travelled and learned a lot. One of the best aspects about this program is that we have class Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays are reserved for group excursions and Fridays are free. I think Wednesdays tended to be my favorite because I learned a lot about the local history, culture and customs through our weekly excursions on Wednesdays. The best days tended to be action packed, and full of interesting tours, museums and most of all, restaurants. I really enjoyed our weekly travel on Wednesdays and my own adventures around Europe during some of the weekends,
As noted before, the academic experience is quite a bit different due to our weekly schedule here. The short classes are one hour and fifteen minutes and the longer ones are two and a half hours. So, we are in class for a much longer period of times but less frequently during the week. This took a bit of getting used to but after a few weeks the change was barely noticeable. Classes are also a bit smaller than usual, because of the limited amount of people on the trip. These were the only two real difference between academics in Charleston and in Trujillo. After all, this is a CofC program with CofC faculty so the workload and assignments were about the same as on campus. The largest difference came with learning outside the classroom which happened everyday whether we traveled or not. My learning outside the classroom could be a simple as my host family teaching me a new word or phrase, or as large as travelling to other countries like the United Kingdom or Italy to learn more about their culture.
It is hard to count how many historical sites and landmarks I have visited and it is also difficult to quantify how much I have learned. I do know that I have seen a myriad of things and learned a ton. Probably my favorite place we traveled was Spain’s capital, Madrid. There we received a tapas tour and learned about the local cuisine, we also went to the Reina Sofia modern art museum where Picasso’s Guernica is housed, which depicts the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. We also toured the Prado, probably one of the most famous art museums in the world. I learned an immense amount about Spanish history, Arab and Jewish influences on Spanish culture and the extensive power of the Catholic church in Spain in the 15th through 18th centuries. Seeing five-hundred-year-old art, and two-thousand-year-old columns was also incredibly surreal, and certainly out of the ordinary for an American.
I think there are two really important things I have learned while abroad so far. First, is to put yourself out there and to maintain an active interest to learn. The local people see this and will welcome you into their culture. If you show an interest, they are always willing to teach and show foreigners their own experience. The second thing I learned is that things always have a way of working themselves out. Living abroad and especially travelling comes with its set of difficulties. We are placed in a completely different world than we are used to so sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed and lonely. Also when travelling, it is easy to become stressed over schedules and plans. The more I lived abroad and traveled the more I realized that difficulties have a way of resolving themselves as long as I maintained an interest to learn.
These days, I am much more keenly aware of cultural differences, and I think I try to be cognizant of them in my daily interactions. This trip made me more aware of cultural diversity because even in Spain, there is vast language and ethnic diversity contrary to many people’s assumptions. I also think travelling to other European countries also opened my eyes to the vast amount of cultural differences around the world. Even after travelling to six countries some things remain universal whether I was in Portugal or England, everyone eats, drinks, sleeps, dances and almost everyone was willing to help me find my way. The ways that people completed these actions were those that differed.