Hi everyone, my name is Joe, I study Spanish and Business, and have recently completed my year abroad at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. As for most languages students, the year abroad was something I had been eagerly anticipating since I knew it existed.
Zaragoza was my first choice for my year abroad, yet upon reflection I can’t think of what specifically made it stand out to me and I was definitely overwhelmed by the range of options at my disposal. Not to say that I was unprepared, but I had little to no idea about the city or what it had to offer. I was slightly concerned pre-departure that I hadn’t been able to visit Zaragoza, but I now look at my lack of knowledge as something which greatly contributed to my experience. It was great to explore a brand-new city with no real perceptions and discover new cultural sites and local food and drink so often.
As for the rest of the preparations, things didn’t quite go in my favour. I’m sure everyone who went through the visa application process wishes to never do it again, and numerous delays in my visa application led to me leaving for Spain later than anticipated, missing my university induction day, and being 10 times more worried and stressed than I already was.
At this point, I’d like to say it was all upwards from here but that unfortunately wasn’t the case. Much of the first two months were consumed by issues relating to both my TIE (residency card) and the fact that I was not at all comfortable in the flat I was living in. This was definitely the lowest point of my year in Spain, in a back and forth with the foreign office for weeks trying to track down my identification number which was left off of my visa yet conveniently included in everyone else’s. Coming at a very early stage in the year, this situation came to me at a time where I still lacked confidence in my Spanish speaking ability, so having to try and be assertive to foreign office staff daily was a bit of a struggle, but if anything it was great practice and an eventual confidence booster. As for my flat, it was not the most pleasant living experience and this was not helpful at all during the stressful weeks/months at first. Worst case, failure to source this identification number could have resulted in me having to leave my year abroad due to something that wasn’t my fault, so you can imagine how stressed and annoyed I was. Fast forward to November, and I had successfully applied for my TIE and ended up moving to a new flat where I made some of my closest friends from the year abroad.
I would say the two situations that I just explained helped me to look at the positives that can be taken from a negative experience, and that actually without these situations I may not have met the same people or had the amazing time that I ended up having. Equally, I will look back on those few months for how they helped me develop personally, overcoming challenges in a new country and going on to have a great year. Relating to this, an important perspective to take is that your time abroad is your own experience and while it might be natural to compare your experience to your friends and classmates, it is not something that helps. I would reflect on my year abroad as something of a late bloomer in that it took me a while to feel settled, establish friends and even involved myself changing where I lived, and in this period I had friends who had done all of this before me.
I have spoken extensively about some of the challenges of my year abroad so to round things off I’d like to share some of the things I enjoyed the most about my time in Zaragoza:
- Taking life slower – Spanish lifestyle to me felt much more relaxed than what I’ve ever been used to. This was a bit of a learning curve at first, I’m normally the first to arrive at everything and not a fan of people being late, but in the end I adapted to this. I quite enjoyed how unstructured my social schedule was, most of my favourite days or nights out ended up being the completely spontaneous ones whereas my social life at home feels a lot more planned out.
- Food and drink – Obvious one. I was already a fan of Spanish food before living there but my opinion of it has gone up even more now. For anyone who ever goes to Zaragoza, my piece of advice would be to go to El Tubo. It consists of around 4 or 5 backstreets which are full of small tapas bars, a lot of which offer their own speciality. I could have gone there every day, it was buzzing every afternoon and evening and the food was incredible. Also, a special shoutout to Zaragoza’s local beer, Ambar.
- The opportunity to visit friends and also host them – Whilst I said to not compare yourself to your friends on years abroad, it is great to see where they live and meet their new friends. I was able to visit friends in Granada and Alicante, both amazing Spanish cities and it was great to be shown around other parts of the country. Equally, when my friends came to visit me I enjoyed being a tourist in my own city again and taking my friends to all of my favourite places.
I am now back in the UK and very much missing Zaragoza. This year was an incredible experience and I could very much see myself living in Spain again, and I will definitely return to visit Zaragoza again, it feels like a second home now. 
