Hola todos! Let the year abroad blogging commence.
It’s official: I’ve been in Zaragoza for a week now. A WEEK. It seems time really does fly when you’re having fun/panicking over living in a foreign country/being a tourist in your new home town. I won’t lie, I was absolutely petrified about moving here and ended up making a long to-do list before I’d even stepped foot in the country out of sheer panic (the phrase ‘food shop!!!!’ ended up on there at least twice… I think I was hungry). We also managed to get the lock on my mother’s suitcase jammed, resulting in a guy at the Euro exchange desk cutting it off with pliers and I lost my denim jacket that I wear 24/7 – I guess moving to a new country can’t go 100% correctly!
However, despite my worrying, we made it to Zaragoza in one piece and my god, this place is absolutely wonderful. I live on one of the main streets in the city, with a 10 minute walk to my right taking me to university campus; a 10 minute walk to my left, and I’m on the high street full of cafés, shops, a super quick tramline and El Tubo, the place you can find tapas on every corner. Another 10 minutes and there’s Plaza del Pilar, the gorgeous basilica and a plethora of gift shops. It’s honestly gorgeous, and it didn’t take me long to get lots of touristy snaps.
This week has been extra special moving to Spain because I’ve had my mother and my boyfriend come out with me. I wouldn’t recommend airport goodbyes to anyone as they are one of the most emotional things I’ve ever experienced, especially as I had to do it twice this week. It doesn’t help that once I said goodbye to Jack yesterday, crying and looking like a puffy red panda, that I then had to get a bus home that seemed to take me around a load of deserted industrial estates, but I digress. Having them here really helped me settle in to my new life. And plus, it meant I could spend my birthday eating lots of food, drinking San Miguel and having a carefree day in the sun – it’s not every day you turn 21 in Spain!
I’ve already made some friends, and my Scottish housemate Mary is absolutely lovely, so fingers crossed this next week of starting Spanish university and coping with life ‘by myself’ will pass a tad more smoothly with them around. Let’s hope I don’t stumble in to the wrong class and end up accidentally learning about feminist philosophy instead of attending my English lit class… I wouldn’t put it past me.
Hasta luego, dears.
Make sure you’re following me on Instagram and Twitter for more year abroad ramblings and lots of obnoxiously annoying tourist snaps.
Kirstie Sutherland 