{"id":1298,"date":"2019-08-13T05:48:20","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T09:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2019-08-13T05:48:20","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T09:48:20","slug":"hasta-luego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/2019\/08\/13\/hasta-luego\/","title":{"rendered":"Hasta Luego"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m writing this last post as I wait for my flight in the Dublin Airport. Now that my time in Spain has officially ended, I can confidently say that it was the best experience of my life.<\/p>\n

Before I arrived in Spain, I had so many worries, all starting with the most infamous pair of words: “what if.” What if I feel lonely living abroad? What if I don’t like the Spanish culture? What if I get homesick? Thankfully, these fears were all for naught. As I’ve alluded to before, I met some of the best people I have ever met. Among them are Issy, Claire, Emily, Daniel, Benjamin and Jaden. Issy is intelligent and selfless; Claire is witty and wise; Emily is quirky and adventurous; Daniel is mature and funny; Benjamin is energetic and entertaining; and Jaden is open-minded and lively. Some of my memorable moments with them include: walking 50 minutes in 95 degree heat to get to the swimming pool; watching the sunset at “the spot”; playing Benjamin in a tennis match featuring our very own ball boys; routinely getting ice cream at 10:30 in the Plaza.<\/p>\n

Although being in good company can make any experience better, I would have liked Spain regardless. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love the siesta culture. The best part of the siesta culture, apart from the nap, is that it allows the day to last so long. (Yes, the sun setting around 9:45 might have a role in that as well, but the Plaza is lively long after sunset!). Living in a place where families and friends are out and about at 11:30 pm made me sympathetic to John Donne’s quote: “No man is an island.” Additionally, the rich history of Salamanca, and Europe overall, was something I had never experienced before, and something I will miss when I get to the US.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I feel more confident, yet insecure, in my Spanish. My confidence stems from my placement in the highest level of classes, my purely Spanish conversations with friends, and the compliments I received from native speakers on my Spanish. Nevertheless, my insecurity comes from the realization of exactly how<\/em> difficult it will be to speak Spanish fluently. Yes, I know I can get by in a Spanish-speaking country without much troubles. But speaking Spanish almost as easily as if it were my native language? That will be a\u00a0huge<\/em> hurdle to overcome. Hopefully my five months in Chile will significantly help with this, but I now anticipate that I will have to live in a Spanish-speaking country post-graduation if I hope to achieve true fluency.<\/p>\n

I have to sign off now since my flight is about to board. There is so<\/em> much more that I would love to rave over when it comes to my time in Spain and Europe, but it would take too long to type. I’ll save it for when I see my family and friends back home and on campus. Because I fully intend on returning to Spain (I never got to see Barcelona!), I’ll sign off with the popular Spanish phrase: hasta luego!<\/p>\n

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Last sunset I saw with Issy and Claire from “the spot,” Salamanca.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m writing this last post as I wait for my flight in the Dublin Airport. Now that my time in Spain has officially ended, I can confidently say that it was the best experience of my life. Before I arrived in Spain, I had so many worries, all starting with the most infamous pair of … Continue reading Hasta Luego<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63994],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1301,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}