Importance Of My Trip To Spain

I woke up that Sunday morning at 6:30 a.m. I was just too excited. My flight did not leave until the middle of the afternoon. I had not been out of the country for twelve years, so I was eager to get the first stamp in my new passport. I had always loved learning about Spanish culture since high school and especially enjoyed my Culture and Civilization of Spain class I took at Towson. As the trip approached, I started having fears that I was loving Spain too much before I even went and was afraid that Spain would not meet my expectations of what I thought it was like. Spain was not like anything I expected; however, it ended up exceeding my expectations. My trip started with a month in Madrid and concluded with two weeks in Alicante. My first

My trip to Oporto, Portugal humorously showed me that I did not know Portuguese as much as I thought I did. After taking a semester of Portuguese, self-teaching, and using DuoLingo.com, I was excited to practice a third language. However, I quickly realized that the differences between Brazilian Portuguese, which I learned, and European Portuguese, which I had not learned much, were vast. Not understanding the language surrounding me gave me a headache and made me feel clueless. That was my first encounter being surrounded by a language that I could not understand the majority of, and immediately I felt sympathy for the many people that move to a country not knowing the

I have my major and track set, but what I want to do with is always changing. “Spanish” is a broad major; you can take so many directions with it as Spanish is present everywhere. I have wanted to teach Spanish for a while; however, I have developed different interests since then. So, a year and a half ago, I decided to get some advice and went into one of my favorite Spanish professor’s office hours. He was not trying to change my career plans entirely, but he brought up opportunities for me that I had not considered before, such as teaching English in Spain. I was interested when he brought it up, but I had my doubts. I was going to college to teach Spanish, not to teach English. In addition, going to Spain for an entire school year alone seemed a little scary. I thanked him for the idea and his belief in me, and I kept that option in the back of my head until I got to Spain, where I could not stop thinking about