It's one thing to live on your home back in the U.S. and it's something else entirely when you do it in a different country. I lived on campus my last two years in college, but it was close enough to go home every weekend and still have home cooked meals : ) so my first time actually living on my own is out of the country! Although I've never really studied abroad in a different country for a long period of time like a semester or year, I still think it would be somewhat different. You have people to rely on if you need help with things such as professors, whoever is in charge of the program, fellow students, etc., and I imagine it's much easier to be acquainted with everything since you have this added help. Being in the program I am calls for a lot of independence and is definitely a growing experience. There's no one really there to help you out if you need help, perhaps in extreme conditions, and if your schools offers help that's great, but for the most part you are on your own. Two ladies who live in Jerez helped me find my piso, but that's basically been the extent of the help I've gotten. When you first arrive in Spain you have to apply for the NIE, a foreign number that allows you to stay in the country. I had to figure out where exactly I needed to go in Jerez and do the entire process by myself and it's still ongoing, even though it has been almost two months since I've been here! After you get the NIE you need the TIE which is the number with your photo on a card. You have to pay a fee, send those papers off to Cadiz, and wait (or so I think) until the card arrives. Besides applying for the NIE I had to open a bank account all bymyself and now I have a bank account in Spain! It's still weird to think about, but at the same time it's really cool because it's like a statement of my independence here.
You are also forced to come out of your shell here. I'm pretty shy, but here your forced to speak and communicate with people in order to accomplish things like getting the NIE, bank account, etc., and just everyday things such as asking for directions, buying a train ticket, etc. It's good because I have to use Spanish and it makes you more confident.
Not only am I (somewhat at this point - poco a poco!) more confident in Spanish, but I have definitely been more open to trying new food. I'm a very picky eater so I have "limited" food options, but I've already tried things that I would never have tried back at home. I've had "secret" meat from a pig (still not sure what part it was and I do not want to know), arroz con leche which is cooked cold rice with milk and cinnamon, and just this past weekend I had, in my opinion, the most exotic of all - bull's tail! Yes, that's right, a bull's tail! I'm not sure if this is something that is popular in just Andalucia, but I have heard about it several times and on Saturday there were five of us who went out to several different places for tapas. At one of them we ordered bull's tail and yes, I tried it! It actually wasn't too bad tasting, a little fatty, but it tasted like roast beef or something along that line. It still hard to wrap my mind around eating a bull's tail, but hey, now I can say I've tried it!
Living in a different country can be uncomfortable and yes, there's a culture shock, but it really does make you grow more as a person. I feel like if I can do all of these things in Spain then living on my own and conquering things back home in the U.S. will be so much easier!
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