- “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Nerja, Costa del Sol, Andalucia, Spain
Green everywhere…… like a veritable forest of vegetation. Trees of all shapes and sizes and hardly any flat turf, instead full texture, cragginess, like a living 3-D topographic map of grass. I was used to flat surfaces…this was mountainous. I just sat there, in complete awe, gazing outside of my window and on the other side lived a scenery that felt foreign to me. It was magnificent, almost as if I was transported to another planet, one far more beautiful than the one I was born in. It was all speeding along like a film strip of wonder. I had to be moving at over 75 mph, but it didn’t feel like it and if it wasn’t for the paradise outside of my window zooming by me, I would’ve thought I was sitting still.
This was Spain, and it was my first day there. I was riding on the Renfe bullet train watching lush green mountain pastures through the window on my way to Malaga from the Madrid airport. I was in the company of fellow tourists, their native languages overlapping each other. As I put the headphones in my ears to focus on the visuals outside the window, everything felt surreal, I thought,”Why did it take me this long to come here?”
I wanted to publish this blog post while I was studying in Spain this past summer, but between the ferry boat rides to Northern Africa, the tapas bars, and the scenic beaches and fiestas and “studying”, I was just far too busy.
I once heard a quote, “the best things you learn aren’t learned in the classroom,” or something to that effect. While I did get to practice my Spanish, my experience traveling there was eye-opening to say the least. Everything from dining customs to interacting with strangers, everything was a learning experience.
Although I stayed there for nearly a month, this post comes from the heart of an aspiring wanderlust who had never been to Spain, but had been dying to go. Prior to Spain, I had been all over the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Nicaragua.
The town of Nerja
I ventured to the Andalusian southeast region of Spain in the Mediterranean, in Costa del Sol, to learn Spanish from its very origins, along with nine other UCF students. We also took an excursion out to Morocco. Along the way, we experienced a cultural revelation that extended beyond merely just learning a language.
For many of us, we were catapulted outside of our comfort zone and discovered a newfound appreciation for Spanish and Moroccan culture. From the distinctive dining customs in Chefchaouen and the astounding Festival of San Isidro in Nerja to the never-ending cats in Tangier, our eyes were opened and we explored a small yet spectacular sliver of this great big planet we live on.
We set off in an adventure that included dancing, a walk-while you-drink-and-eat-parade with horse-driven carriages, camel dromedary riding, wine tasting, exploring museums, cathedrals, eating tapas, ceviche and of course- studying.
This was our “classroom”
Words fail to convey the beauty of Spain. You have to be there to experience it for yourself. No amount of photos or words could possibly paint the portrait of the masterpiece that is Spain. After all, It was the inspiration for many of history’s great artists.
Leaving Florida, as I checked in my bags through Delta’s kiosk on my connecting flight to Spain and walked through TSA’s security screening, I was envisioning an adventure similar to the stories in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Eat Pray Love or Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I prepared for my trip by reading/watching those books/movies. In other words, I really wanted to live that Spaniard bohemian lifestyle, even if it was only for a month.
Me: “Make sure you get those mountains in the background!”
I even had some wild dreams of starting my own paper in a small town- a la The Rum Diary in this beautiful country. The elevated landscape was breathtaking. We’re all from Orlando, where the highest point in elevation is Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World.
Florida’s most famous mountain
I found myself finally arriving in the small town of Nerja and it was simply splendid. It validated what the brochures promised-a delightful, scenic feast for the eyes and a landscape so grand that you couldn’t capture it all with a thousand iPhone panoramic shots.
Part of Nerja’s charm is the old town vibe, history bleeds from every corner you stumble upon and every hillside step you take. The town is situated on a hillside with a precipitous inclination. But the interesting thing about Nerja is that it is a beach resort town and it’s home to the prime tourist destination, “El Balcon de Europa”.
The town of Nerja was perfect for a summer study abroad session. Year-round sunshine and beautiful beaches and people along with a small-town feel. Among the bars and numerous tourists on scooters, there were shops, boutiques,unique restaurants and bars-a rural tapas bar with a simple wooden structure named Pinocchio’s tavern comes to mind.
The beautiful, crystal clear blue waters of Nerja’s Burriana beach, which are normally warm during the summer, were ice cold in the second week of May. But we still did some crazy fun stuff at the beach during our first week, cliff jumping, raft riding,etc. We explored the historic caves of Nerja, walked three miles accompanied by unlimited drinks in a parade of fun-filled fiesta called the Festival of San Isidro.
Balcon De Europa
During our time in Spain, we also managed to check out the following cities:
Malaga-Home of the birthplace of Picasso, a big city. I specifically remember the numerous festivals. Zara and H&M shops in every corner and the Catedral de Malaga, an amazing building with wondrous architecture and a treasure chest full of rich history.
Malaga
Benalmadena- Another tourist beach town filled with nightclubs, it’s the Spanish version of Virginia beach, including the boardwalk full of club promoters trying to lure you in their dingy beach club.
Benalmadena
Toledo- My friends loved this city. A cultural and religious mixture is reflected in every nuance in this landmark historical city.
- A couple of classmates, Blake and Jordan, in Toledo
Seville- Do not miss out on this city if you’re to ever visit Spain. You MUST check out the Plaza de Espana, a site where Hollywood movies like “The Dictator” and “Attack of the Clones” were filmed
Plaza de Espana
Frigiliana- A charming small hidden gem of a town. We came wine tasting here and I especially admired how history is literally told through the paintings that adorn many of the buildings here. The Moors once inhabited this place. The steep walkways are made of marble and most of the houses are white. Very quiet town.
The white houses of Frigiliana, it was indeed dark and stormy
Madrid- I wish I could fully explain how much I loved Madrid, but that would take a few blog posts. Instead, I will just say that Madrid is unlike any other city I have been to. I only had a few days to explore it. I had fond memories of the hostel I stayed in, the magnificent Prado museum and the unique nightlife. Plaza Mayor is worth a visit. Madrid during the day and during the night-it’s like two different worlds.
Madrid Train Station…that is all
Barcelona-This was the city I was looking forward to the most while studying abroad in Spain and it did not disappoint. Majestic in every sense of the word.
Barcelona’s Cruise Port in Las Ramblas
Cordoba-I do specifically remember venturing down to a forbidden windmill below the bridge, visiting multiple historic museums and learning about bullfighting history here.
The Windmill
We also got to see three cities in Morocco including Chefchouan, Tangier and Tetuan (Northern Morocco)
Tyler, Patty, Christina and I posing on top of the hotel in city of Tetouan
Some of the awesome people from my study abroad group
We had two weeks of the study abroad and after that, we were free to explore Spain on our accord.
“The core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences.“
Christopher McCandless, “Into the Wild”
Now onto my lessons from studying abroad in Spain. I learned much more than four things obviously, but these really stuck with me long after I had arrived back in the states.
- There really are cheap ways to travel abroad
If you’re a typical budget-minded college student, like myself, then most likely you’d want to save every penny you can on plane ticket to study abroad. You may have depended on the generosity of financial aid to fund your trip, or if you weren’t lazy , then you won scholarships (I kid, I kid..but not really). I managed to find a plane ticket for about half of what everyone else was paying for, but… there was a catch.
I knew someone who worked for Delta Airlines, he told me about a really cheap plane ticket called the “buddy pass.” With the buddy pass, you’re relegated to the standby list and are at the mercy of the availability of seats in a particular plane. Essentially you are only paying the taxes of what would be the full price of your plane ticket.
Sometimes not all of the plane seats on a plane are bought, so whoever is on a standby flight list can grab these seats, but there’s an order to the standby list.
It goes, in order of importance:
Off-duty Delta employees like pilots, flight attendants, crew members etc.
Then the employees family members.
Then the janitors, cooks, luggage, any cargo, furniture, lamps, dogs, cats, your grandmother’s parakeets, ants, silverware.
Then alllll the way at the very bottom of the list: “buddy” pass members AKA me.
This standby list could be huge! I looked at the number of plane seats before I bought the tickets and it seemed like they had plenty of seats available for my flight.
A funny thing happened on the way to Spain
I thought to myself, “this sounds like a good deal, besides how many people go to Spain on any given day? I’ll have a seat for sure!”
I packed my bags and set out to Orlando International Airport Saturday morning.
And then I missed my very first connecting flight to Atlanta because it was full. But then I made the next one to Atlanta, only an hour later. When I had arrived to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, I was playing catch up to my connecting flight to Madrid. So I ran to the terminal with all my might, zooming by like the Flash. I got to the terminal with only five minutes until the gate closed, then I checked in with the counterperson.
Counter Lady: “There’s one person ahead of you, if she doesn’t show up in two minutes then you’re good to go!”
So I waited, for what seemed like an eternity, until I saw this older woman speed walking toward my direction. Nooo. The lady had checked in. In my desperation, I had actually offered her $100 to give up her seat so that I can get on this one. This flight was the only Delta flight going to Madrid today.
I spent the night at a hotel in Atlanta. But it wasn’t all gloom and doom. The very next morning I made my flight to Madrid and flew BUSINESS CLASS ELITE! FREE unlimited champagne, beer and wine. Freshly made FREE food, chef-prepared meals and breakfast, along with a completely reclinable and spacious seat/bed. FREE gift bag of goodies. Oh and did I mention it was FREE? If there are business class seats available, they will give them to buddy pass holders.
So you see, the buddy pass is definitely an option.
The way back.
My next buddy pass adventure was equally as volatile. On my way back from Barcelona to Orlando. I made the connecting flight to Madrid, no problemo. The flight to Orlando?A short one and a half hour flight? I missed about 10 flights in a row, slept at the airport and then just took the bus.I completely forgot that I had made my return flight on a holiday weekend (Memorial) which meant it was virtually impossible to get a seat.
It felt like I had stayed there forever. I think I managed to grow a full beard and even become an employee for a bit during my stay there.
An accurate representation of my stay in Atlanta
Despite all of that, my story is not quite that different from others, I know plenty of people who have traveled this way and it can be a great self-discovering experience. Unpredictable? For sure, but if you’re a gambling man or woman, this type of ticket is for you and you’ll save hundreds.
Bottom Line: The buddy pass can be a great deal, especially for the frugal student. I paid half of what everyone else paid for a plane ticket and I got business class all the way to Spain. But it can also be an “enemy pass” as you can stay camped out at the airport for days if there are no seats and lose sanity as every single standby customer that’s ahead of you gets rolled over to the next flight making that flight’s list longer.
So just plan around it and have some extra days if you’re using the “buddy” pass. You just have to calculate the risk, but it’s very doable and lots of people travel this way.
I know what you’re thinking, “But Danny, you knew somebody in order to get that pass.” You don’t have to know someone, simply look at bulletins or online classifieds, Craigslist (give it a shot) and people are more than willing to sell their unused buddy passes.
I saved hundreds on my plane ticket by switching to Buddy Pass and so could you.
- I didn’t care about my diet anymore
I left my good eating habits in America. And how could I not when I had the most delicious tapas, exotic cuisine and sweetest flan sitting in the table right in front of me?
It’s hard to pass up dessert when it’s included in every single meal. I said yes to everything. A glass of wine? Sure! Some San Miguel beer? Why not! Some weird pork thing with rice? I’ll take it!
cous-cous in Morocco
An interesting candy from Morocco
Shrimp Cocktail in Nerja
A few of my fellow classmates had more willpower than I did. They had vegan power and they made sure to use it and avoided eating any meat or dairy products. Not me, I had a voice that kept yelling at me: “You’re in Spain! Drink Dance, eat everything, get a taste of the culture, see as much as you can!”
For our first two weeks, we took advantage of free lunch and dinner vouchers in which we had our choice of eating between two restaurants. After the study abroad program finished, we then had to find places of our own and explore Spain’s many restaurants. We ate at a tapas bar at least once per day, while I gave myself a per diem budget, I was still very liberal in what I ate. If it was something I never had before, you can bet I tried it. Was all of it great? No, so much was different from what were were accustomed to. The only type of restaurant we stayed away from was American restaurants.
- Spain is extremely stingy with Wi-Fi
And I thought Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was bad with Wi-Fi, Spain is criminally stingy, and from what I’ve heard, most of Europe is as well. I had no clue what to expect with the Wi-Fi, because it’s something I didn’t really plan for. I honestly thought I was going to just shut off my phone and never have to use it. Many who travel leave their phone at home. In my case, I actually ended up needing it since I missed a few flights and I was running late so I had to check in with my advisor once I got there.
I brought my iPhone 5 with me, mostly because I had planned to take a boatload of photos (for Facebook of course). If you’re trying to avoid using a data plan, as I was, and the use of any international minutes, it could be tough to get in contact with anyone in Spain. I didn’t prepay my data and I wasn’t about to run up a thousand-dollar phone bill so I had to use Wi-fi. In Spain, you have to practically beg a business to let you use theirs for free and most likely they won’t. They want your euros.
Throughout my trek to Malaga from Madrid, there was only one available Wi-Fi network and it was at a McDonald’s Cafe. I was so spoiled with just being able to piggyback off of virtually anyone in America or even using my 4G LTE. I was desperately looking for a Starbucks or maybe a Spanish version of Panera Bread (no such luck.)
They’re all locked!
Just be aware that this isn’t America, you won’t see “Free Wi-Fi” advertised. If you do somehow find an unlocked signal, it can be misleading. If I had a U.S. nickel for every time I was tricked by a Wi-Fi signal with no lock and then forced to pay at a sign-in page..I’d have enough to trade for one euro.
How Wi-Fi saved our Day
During our last day in Nerja, we were all supposed to meet up at the bus stop at 6 a.m., this was printed on our schedule, which I tossed out in the beginning of our trip. The only people who remembered exactly where to meet up were the girls. Me and the other two guys had no clue where the bus stop was, so we got up before sunrise and met up at the wrong bus stop. After 15 minutes of waiting and no sign of the girls or a bus, we ran around town like Speedy Gonazalezes trying to find the girls. This is where Wi-Fi could’ve helped or a data plan or prepaid phones, but we just ran around Nerja until we found each other.
The bus stop…minus all the guys
- You create instant bonds with your fellow study abroad classmates
You cultivate friendships so much easier when you are all staring at the same snails and shrimp in your paellas and taking trains, boats and buses to get to Morocco. When you’re thrust into another country and experiencing a culture shock with a study abroad group, you make friends seamlessly. There were no random hellos or awkward handshakes and introductions. We jumped right into friendships, and it’s hard not to, you really can’t compare the experience of sharing the wonder of exploring a crazy deep dark historic cave in Nerja, sneaking into forbidden windmills in Seville, wandering around Moroccan flea markets, riding stinky dromedaries, etc.
This is not only true of your study abroad friends, but of virtually anyone you meet along the way. I remember meeting many people at the airport with whom I had instant and long conversations with and then promised to keep in touch with them.
- The Nerja Crew
Our study abroad group had free-spirited, energetic students sightseers. Why go to a new country and spend the days in your hotel room? I think most of us averaged five hours of sleep per night. But who cares? You’re in a different country for a limited time, we made the most of it and made it an awesome shared experience that we will never forget.
Obviously, there was so much more that I had learned while I was there.
There was so much I learned when I studied abroad. I am so glad that I decided to do this and this is something that I truly recommend to any student. Not only will you learn or improve on a language, but you will expand your horizons beyond anything you can dream of.
It would take me 20+ pages to completely write about what I learned. Here are some of the other things I learned while I studied abroad:
Don’t drink the water in Morocco. I also learned how to budget, discovered there’s an entire civilization of self-sustaining cats living in the streets of Morocco and that I still spoke Spanish with everyone even two weeks after I returned to America and offered to pay in Euros for everything after my return. I also learned that I could function almost a month with a nightly average of about 5 hours of sleep.
Ok so I realize none of these were exactly enlightening, but I know that once I touched down back in the states, I was a changed man and if I were to wager, I would say everyone from our group had changed as well.
The border in Morocco
A payphone!
I also learned how to budget, discovered there’s an entire civilization of self-sustaining cats living in the streets of Morocco and that I still spoke Spanish with everyone even two weeks after I returned to America.
As I boarded my plane to America, I looked out of the window of Spain once more. My astronomical expectations of this beautiful country were exceeded. I wanted to experience the beauty of another country and it did not disappoint. I stared out, looking once more at the terrain and it was if I was about to leave a good friend. But I knew that I would be back, so this wasn’t a good bye, more of a “see you later.”
Cordoba
Adventures in Andalucia 