Studying Abroad: Reflections of a High School Student

GRACE FERNICOLA (V)

Last summer, I leaped outside of my comfort zone. I always wanted to experience an immersion into a different culture and language, and the opportunity to leave the New Jersey suburbs for a fiveweek program in Zaragoza, Spain, through School Year Abroad (SYA) was a dream come true. However, I quickly realized adjusting to life in a foreign country, especially while staying with a group of strangers, was much easier said than done.

Prior to my departure, I texted my host sister for several days, and was so excited to see her and the community where I would be living. With this, I was heading to Zaragoza with an open mind. However, immediately after greeting my host family with an awkward “hola,” I panicked. Everything I learned over my five years of Spanish classes left my head. How was it possible for people to talk that fast? Were they speaking to me, or about me? Even when spoken to, I only smiled and tried to keep my composure.

It all seemed to fall apart once I settled into my host family’s guest room alone, worrying about the weeks ahead. I called my mom and told her I could not understand my host family, did not like this study abroad idea after all, and wanted to come home. Immediately. My mom merely listened, gave me a slightly sympathetic sigh, and told me to hang in there. It will get easier each day, she told me.

As much as I hate to admit it, my mom was right. As the days passed and my classes at SYA started, I began to live a new life. I started to overcome the language barrier, which initially prevented me from bonding with my host family. I was forbidden to speak English with my classmates. If I needed help from my teachers, a comical exchange would ensue between us: I would ask them questions in broken Spanish, and they would give me equally broken responses which I did not understand.

Surviving a new house with four strangers required lots of adaptation. I adjusted to their diet, which consisted of few vegetables and fruit, but a surplus of potatoes and ham. When I accompanied them to the food market, I would look at all the products that never made their way into our shopping cart. After a couple of weeks, I desperately craved a vegetable and left school during a break and bought a cucumber from a vegetable stand, downing the entire thing unpeeled right on the street. Few things had ever tasted so good!

As I grew to no longer mind huevos rotos or lukewarm beverages, I also learned a lot. I figured out when to laugh at my host dad’s corny jokes about American pop culture. I taught myself to sleep while the family’s cat, Lola, sat on my head, and my host brother played his electric guitar at night. My teachers warned me that Spanish teenagers talk very fast, so I started to replay everything my host sister said in my head to dissect the words later and ensure I fully understood what she meant. I made friends with some Spanish teenagers on my own, without speaking any English with them, and they helped me improve my Spanish by correcting my mistakes and teaching me colloquial words never taught in a classroom. I adjusted the way I dressed, especially after discovering flip-flops are not socially acceptable in public, even in 100-degree heat, and sweatpants and sweatshirts are strictly worn as pajamas. Zaragoza became less of a mystery to me. I navigated the streets alone, without an international data plan for online directions. Although I often needed help, I eventually figured out the train and bus schedules to get to and from school. I became skilled at ducking into the nearest Starbucks or McDonald’s for a few minutes of Wi-Fi, so I could Google Maps my way back to school, memorizing the streets I needed to take. I also learned to read a paper map for the first time.

During my time in Spain, I had to become independent, a skill I’d honestly never had to use at home. Studying abroad taught me how to adapt to unexpected difficulties, as well as how to solve problems all on my own. As terrifying and overwhelming as it was at times, I can’t wait to do it again!

I’ve always been wary of swimming in lakes and ponds. It’s not that I’m scared of swimming, as I’ve been competitively swimming for most of my life, but my fear stems from the uncertainty of not being able to see the bottom of the murky waters and what may be lurking beneath. At summer camp, I would nervously jump