If in doubt...eat churros

Well, this is it! My year abroad is finally over, and I’ve made it. As I write this, I’m sat in Bologna airport drinking a cappuccio, soaking in the last few drops of Italian smells, sounds and sights before I return back to rainy dull England. What I really mean by this is that I gave myself 3 hours to get to the airport when I know for a FACT it takes 2 hours maximum, and I have nothing else to do so I thought I’d whip out my laptop. I wish it was more romantic, but even after 9 months in some of the most relaxed countries in the world, I’ve still not lost some of my British quirks. Unsurprisingly. If there’s anyone out there who has managed to read about every single one of our adventures, failures and triumphs, thank you! Blogging through this year has been helpful for so many reasons: it’s given me a creative outlet when I was bored/unmotivated, it’s been a reason to go on trips, experience new cities, take photos, live in the moment and document those moments. To think t...

(None of the photos included in this post are my own) As I mentioned in my blog about joining clubs on your year abroad, whilst studying in Forli I decided to join the group SsenzaLimiti. SsenzaLimiti are a theatre group in the University of Bologna who hold many different foreign language theatre groups for language learners or natives to get together and create a performance. The actual performances themselves are a 4 day extravaganza of 3 different shows every evening where each different group shows the play that they’ve been working on, most of which have Italian subtitles. I first heard about the group in the welcome meeting during my second week in Forli. As soon as Cristiano – one of the leaders of the group – gave the presentation, it sparked an interest for me. I’d been really missing playing with the various groups in the musicians society in Swansea and this would be the perfect opportunity to get me back on the stage. I emailed the leader of the L2 Italiano g...

"In the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take." — Lewis Carroll My year abroad is slowly coming to a close, I have around a month left here in Germany but my last two weeks are busy with exams so I imagine time will fly then. I must admit that I'm getting ready for home now, as much as this year has been a brilliant experience, I'm so ready for a proper routine again. I've been extremely lucky with my timetable whilst here in Germersheim, I don't have any lessons on Mondays or Fridays so this has given me plenty of time to explore. During my second weekend into the term, I visited Strasbourg with one of my course mates. We were desperate to do a tour of European Parliament but this got cancelled do to Giles Jaunes protests. Despite this, it was a great weekend and my first time in France Not long after this, I met up with Sarah in Zurich. It was brilliant but unbelievably cold! It was great to be able to just café h...

It’s certainly been a while since I last wrote on the blog! In reality, this is due to the mountains of work I have been receiving from every class, as well as extra reading and vocab revision, and being exhausted every day from all the concentration it takes to speak Italian. But you don’t want to hear about that! Today I thought I’d take you on a short ‘virtual’ journey around Forl ì - because let’s be honest, you could probably see it all in a day so it’ll be quicker to just read this post and steal my photos. Although it’s one of the smaller cities in Emilia Romagna, and you’re probably more tempted to visit Bologna, Cesena, Rimini, or literally any other city that the region has to offer, I really enjoy the small-town feel of Forli. To give you an idea, I live 3 minutes’ walk from the beautiful main square, 7 minutes’ walk from the university (speaking from experience, it IS possible to set off at 9:05 and arrive with enough time to grab a coffee from the machine) and only ...

Going on a year abroad can be a very lonely experience. It’s difficult to make friends as it is, without the added language barrier. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Most universities offer clubs and societies that aren’t just for the native students, and, having joined clubs myself, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about joining one and why it’s one of the best choices you’ll make. We’ll start with an obvious one: it’s a great way to practice your language skills You’ve come abroad to improve your language knowledge, but that shouldn’t be limited to the classroom. You’ll learn more conversational, everyday language used by people your age. Instead of having to talk like you’re writing your final year dissertation when you’re in a nightclub or out for coffee with friends, you’ll be able to speak normally! I don’t know about you, but a big fear I had when moving abroad was I wouldn’t know how to just chat to someone or order something in a restaurant, and t...

Germersheim...Oh what a beautiful little Stadt After what seems like forever, I'm now in Germany starting my second semester abroad. I haven't posted in a while as I've been at home catching up with everyone and was lucky enough to spend 3 weeks travelling with a friend. The journey here was super fast compared with Granada, the flight was a little over an hour and it only took an hour and half to get from Frankfurt airport to Germersheim on trains. People have been super friendly here too, helping me get my suitcases on and off the trains as well as not losing their rag because my German isn't the best.  Over the next 3 months I'm really hoping to improve my German, it doesn't gel with me like Spanish does which I've found really hard to overcome and it's kind of hindered my learning. But here I am willing to learn and trying my best.  My first day was a little bit of a nightmare, it turned out that I wasn't on the university mailing ...

You may be wondering why you haven’t heard from us for a while. That’s because we’ve broken up, moved out and moved on. In other words, we’ve moved on to our second semester abroad! From now on, you’ll be getting separate blog posts about different experiences in different places, but don’t worry, it’s not all change. There’ll still be a fair amount of bad puns, sarcasm and general complaining about the challenges and embarrassing situations we’ll most certainly encounter. My second semester will be spent studying in Forli, Italy. I’ve been living in Forli for almost a week now, and the university transition has been much smoother than when I moved to Granada. This could be because I’d done it all before, expecting things to go wrong and be difficult to manage, especially given my low level of Italian, but I think it’s due to how incredibly organised and helpful the university have been thus far. Once we’d chosen our modules, it was very easy to find out where and when ...

Madrid After about a month of being tour guides for friends and family, (see our previous post if you want to see what we got up to) we decided that we needed a weekend to ourselves to relax and catch up with some friends. What better place to do this than the fashion capital of Spain, which also happens to be a short 50 minute plane ride from Granada? Or so we thought... It's well known that we don't have the best luck with planes, but this was taken to a whole new level. We won't bore you with the details, but we ended up with a nice 7 hour delay - a great start to our relaxing weekend away. When we finally arrived at the Airbnb and met our friends it was around midnight (and by the time we'd caught up it was almost 3am!) and we were exhausted, so settled down for the night, or morning.  In the morning, we decided to sample our favourite Spanish breakfast dish -churros and hot chocolate. After looking at the queue for the "best churros in Madrid"...

Food glorious food Where to go to satisfy all your needs Although we're in Spain and you probably all think we eat paella 24/7, we don't. We're human and can't survive off a tomato based diet for 4 months, so here's a guide for people who are driven by their stomachs... In the centre Sibarius - Although appearing very upmarket upon first glance, this Japanese restaurant is surprisingly affordable, and incredibly delicious. They have a selection of salads, meats, fish and a sushi menu after 8pm which is well worth the wait. You can tell all their ingredients are fresh and well prepared, and they're accommodating to English speakers and fussy eaters alike. We recommend the goats cheese and mango starter, it's amazing! Alhambra café - One word. Churros. For the ultimate churros experience, we wholeheartedly recommend this cafe. The hot chocolate is to die for! It's located in the central Plaza Bib-Rambla, just round the corner from the cathed...

THE FIVE "W"s The Alhambra and Generalife Who? Everyone. Whether you're interested in history or not, it's still worth a visit for the amazing views over the city and of the Sierra mountains.   What? The Alhambra, meaning “the red one” in arabic, is a palace-fortress with a complicated history that Jeremy Kyle wouldn’t even be able to handle. It has been home to Nasrids, Sultans and the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. Generalife, a simple but spectacular structure, was the summer house that the last Nasrid family used to reside in during the hottest months of the year and has some of the nicest gardens ever. Despite being close to the Alhambra, it was considered to be outside of the city, so visitors would take a horse and carriage over. Lazy buggars.   Where? It's quite a steep uphill walk to the Alhambra from the centre and takes around 15 minutes. However, if the weather...