Pre-departure Post

I traveled to Spain in 2001 after I graduated high school.  Most of my time was spent in Barcelona and the surrounding area because I was visiting a friend who lived there.  This experience has given me a good understanding of what life is like in Spain.  People generally live in apartments, sometimes with a balcony.  They walk everywhere and eat their meals later than Americans do.  The grocery stores can differ from those in America by quite a bit.  I found that when we went to a shopping center we would mostly buy food from individual vendors who would deal with one type of food, such as bread or dairy.  The Spanish that is spoken in Spain is very fast and can be hard to understand.  People would often offer to speak English to me because they were usually able to speak English better than I could speak Spanish.  I think it will probably be a bit of a challenge to overcome people's desire to communicate in English with me.  But I am extremely excited for the challenge.  I am also really looking forward to meeting my host family and forming a bond with them.