My Semester Abroad

Videos

glennmoody — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:55:40 +0000

A riot in Salamanca. You can see the fires and hear the gunfire (mostly rubber bullets or smoke bombs):

Me feeding pigeons in Venice off my bare hands:

Travelling

glennmoody — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:33:43 +0000

For most of my trip, I traveled on a EuroRail pass, which saved me a lot of money and allowed me a lot of flexibility.

Also, I flew on the budget airline RyanAir. It’s pretty cool, they have intracontinental flights sometimes for less than 1 euro. I flew to London for only 6 euros.

Flaming Shots at La Chupiteria

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:30:13 +0000

Pictures

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:25:52 +0000

Plaza Mayor: the Center of Historic Salamanca

My first day in Spain I saw this huge xmas festival in Madrid.

San Esteban: I lived about a block from here.

Pictures

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 16:58:30 +0000

Rome: Gathering to See the Pope Speak

Swiss Alps: Hiking and Meeting a Local Donkey

Sevilla: Ben Jumping to Grab an Orange off of a Tree in Sevilla

La Chupiteria

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:45:44 +0000

A typical night in Spain, regardless of the day of the week consisted of: going to the bar and drinking, then going to a chupiteria (“shot bar”) and taking very cheap shots of pretty much any variety (best deal was 4 tequila por 1 euro). After that, we’d go to a very typically European dance club until 5 or 6am. At that point if you weren’t too tired, you’d go to another club that was probably opening at about 6 or 8am, and you could continue dancing and having fun till about 10am when everything closes up, at which point you stumble home and go to sleep. As a side note, I rarely made it past 5 or 6am.

Where Exactly did I go?

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:42:51 +0000

During the semester I traveled across Spain, hitting most of the important cities, in no particular order: Avila, Toledo, Santander, Madrid several times, Segovia, and Sevilla. Also, I vistited London because the flight was only 6 euros.

And when my semester ended, I put all my stuff in a big backpack, and trekked across Europe. My route was as follows:

Salamcana—- the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands (Spring Break), Barcelona, Milan, Rome, Florence, Venice, Geneva, Interlaken, Bern, Zurich, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna, Prague—-back home to New York- via London.

School

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:36:09 +0000

The program I attended consisted entirely of international students, the majority of which were European, but a lot were American like me. It was an intensive Spanish language and culture program: 5 hours of class per day. By the end of the semester, I was more or less fluent, which was pretty cool. By now I’m probably about half as good as I was then.

Day-to-Day Life in Spain

glennmoody — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:34:09 +0000

Host Family: I lived with a host family. My host parents were Inaqui and Montserrat; my host little brother was named Luis; and in addition to me, a Japanese exchange student named Midori lived with the family. She was the best. Needless to say, no one spoke any English, especially Midori. So this forced me to speak in Spanish constantly, and I eventually figured it out, mainly by watching team handball and dubbed episodes of the Simpsons on the tele.