Towards the end of last year I heard about the opportunity to go abroad to finish off my degree. Fast forward 9 months and I find myself sat at a desk in the earthquake engineering office at the University of Granada. I arrived two weeks ago and now I have a spare moment, I can keep you updated on my experience.
Having only one semester’s worth of Spanish language classes, and no lessons for months before I arrived, I was always going to struggle. However, in just these few days I can see a huge difference; my list of vocabulary is growing exponentially and I can follow conversations without too much trouble. The hardest part, which is probably the case with most languages, is not being able to form sentences. It didn’t help that the Spanish classes only covered the present tense.
When I first arrived I didn’t have any accommodation sorted out – Sheffield had advised finding it once I got here, and now I’m sorted I can see why. There are advertisements for spare rooms with tear-off phone numbers upon every single street. There are also a few websites where people list spare rooms, and providing you can communicate, it is very easy to arrange seeing a room the same day without having to go through a landlord. So my plan on arrival was to stay in a hostel for the first few nights until more permanent accommodation could be sorted out. What I didn’t realise was, the weekend I arrived was Spring Break – hence every hotel and hostel was pretty much sold out.
I did however have one contact – Leandro, a 28 year old PHD student from my department. We arranged to meet up and he very kindly let me and the other person from Sheffield stay in his flat for a few days until we sorted ourselves out. We began house-hunting straight away and within a couple of days I found a flat. It’s quite expensive for Granada, but still a lot less than what I pay in Sheffield. It’s situated right in the town centre, just a couple of minutes away from the cathedral and perfect for going out. I live with two Italian girls, one German girl and a Spanish guy. The only downside is it’s around a 30 minute walk from the architecture department.
“Hold on”, I hear you cry. “You said you’re working in an earthquake engineering office; that’s nothing to do with architecture!” You make a good point, and one that surprised me too. Apparently in Spain they don’t really have structural engineers. Civil engineers focus on roads, ports, bridges etc., whereas architects are taught how to design buildings in as much detail as structural engineers. I’m the first ever Erasmus student they’ve had in the earthquake department. No pressure then.
New word of the day: Resaca = hangover
Adam Saunders