Bon dia! I’m Katie, I’m a modern languages student, and I spent my year abroad studying Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. I figured I’d reflect on my experiences this year and share some thoughts.
When I landed in Barcelona in September, exhausted and slightly bewildered by the sense of reality quickly dawning upon me, I found myself stumbling headfirst into Catalan culture and tradition, welcoming me to the city with the warmth and excitement of Correfocs. No, literally, the night I arrived in Barcelona, me and my family happened to be wandering down the same street that was hosting a traditional fire run for the neighbourhood’s Festa Major celebrations. It was a beautiful, exhilarating day, and one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
After the fun of Festa Major and La Mercè, it was time to start classes and settle in to the city and the life of a university student studying in Spain. Having the structure and support of a university was key in helping me get used to life in a new country, so I’m pleased to say that it was definitely the right choice for my year abroad. Not only was the familiarity of a university environment good for me, it was also a great place to meet new people. Outside of the classroom, I was staying in a very familial, sociable private student residence and there was always something going on in my flat, where I met so many people who all had different stories to share. Once again, the support, security and amenities that my accommodation offered took so much stress off of my shoulders and gave me so many opportunities. The building was in a really convenient location, as well; not in the bustling heart of the city (but well-connected to it by metro, bus or tram) and in a quieter, more residential neighbourhood, which suited me well. It took me about 15 minutes to get to my university campus, including a 10 minute tram or bus trip.
As someone who spent the majority of my life living in the countryside, moving to a city as full-of-life and ever-moving as Barcelona was quite the culture shock. All of a sudden, I was hundreds of miles away from my community in Southampton and in the countryside where I grew up, and I was a stranger. Put like that it sounds scary but sometimes it was nice. I found solace in the fact that I could make an embarrassing mistake in Spanish out in public and I would likely never see the people who were there to witness my blunder ever again. This newfound sense of anonymity was comforting and, if nothing else, it gave me the chance to reinvent and reintroduce myself. And with that mentality, Barcelona started to feel like home pretty quickly.
Barcelona really has something for everyone: dozens of museums throughout the city and a programme that allows free entry into some of them on the first Sunday of the month; hikes through the mountains on the outskirts of the city; a coastline of golden beaches stretching from the seaside towns outside the city and all the way through it; the seemingly endless street of Passeig de Grà cia that blends modern shops with recognisable brand names and authentic Gaudian architecture throughout the city; and the narrow, winding streets of the old town. I haven’t even scratched the surface of what Barcelona has to offer, so there’s still plenty to discover. There was never an excuse to be bored, even in the winter months, as there is such a variety of indoor and outdoor activities to get stuck in to.
Telling my friends that I’d booked my flight home was one of the hardest parts of the whole year. They were as devastated as I was, but they promised me that we would get to celebrate Sant Joan before I left. And so, just as I was welcomed to the city by a parade of fireworks in the street where it all began in September, June arrived much too quickly and I found myself in the middle of a much larger firework show on the beach in the middle of the night, this time surrounded by the friends I’d made, celebrating a holiday that marks the beginning of a new chapter.
My Year Abroad in Barcelona, Spain