Molly’s TY Experience in Granada, Spain
¡Hola! My name is Molly Walsh. I’m a 16 year old transition year student from Dublin, and I went with a group of friends to Granada, Spain for four weeks. I’ve been learning Spanish in school for three years now, and really loved the language, so I went to improve my Spanish and had an amazing time!
LANDING & FIRST DAY ARRIVAL
I had been looking forward to going to Granada for ages, but I was still really nervous when we finally landed in Málaga. I was with a few other Irish people, and we were all picked up by drivers organised for us and driven an hour and a half to Granada. When I arrived, we were greeted by Sandra, who was working for the Spanish learning company with Tribe. She was really lovely and chatted with us as we waited for our host families to arrive and pick us up. Soon, my host mother and host father came to collect me in their car and it was time for me to leave my friends. I was really nervous, but that feeling left me immediately as they began to joke about how heavy my suitcase was as they helped me lift it into their car. They drove back to their apartment which was very close by, where I was given a tour of their apartment, and met one of my host sisters. Later that evening, my host parents (or host padres as we soon began to call them) gave me a grand tour of Granada, pointing out famous buildings and telling me a bit about Granada’s history as we walked. When we got home later at around eight, I was in the middle of getting ready for bed when they called me in for dinner! That’s when I realised that my life in Spain would be very different to my daily life in Ireland, and I was going to have to get used to everything, including very late meals!
MY FIRST DAY IN SPANISH SCHOOL!
The day after I arrived, I had my first day of school. First I went to an English academy where I was reunited with my friends and met the other people on the course, as well as Simona, our Spanish coordinator who told us all about the rules of the course and what school would be like. Then we had about two hours until we started school, so my friends and I took the opportunity to explore Granada. It was very exciting, and we spent that time wandering down the streets, pointing out places that we would go and what we should do later. Soon, we had to return to the academy, where Simona took us to the school, we would soon be attending every weekday for the next four weeks. The people in our class were really nice, and asked us questions about where we were from and what we thought about Spain. It was a bit difficult to keep up in classes and understand what the work was, but the teachers were all really nice and did their best to include us in their lessons. English classes were such an amazing experience, because I got to see how English is taught in Spain, and the English teacher always taught us the Spanish version of whatever the rest of the class were learning in English. Another thing I really liked about Spanish school was that it ended at 2:30, much earlier than my school in Dublin! This gave me a lot more time to explore Granada and do fun activities, like going to the gym I had joined, as it seemed like a popular thing with Spanish students and was a great way of staying active, which I really enjoyed.
MY HOST FAMILIA
My host family was lovely, and I was very grateful for how welcoming they were to me as soon as I arrived. Mealtimes, like dinner and lunch, were always fun as they always asked me questions about my day and helped me with the Spanish words I didn’t know or understand yet as I struggled to form a half way decent response. It was also interesting to try new Spanish foods and listen to their conversations, as I got a deeper understanding of Spanish life and culture. On the weekends, they took me to visit their grandparents who lived outside of Granada and owned a vineyard and an olive grove. They showed me all of the things that they grew and I stuffed myself to burst on grapes and the delicious paella the grandmother had made for us. The second time we visited, it was for my host sister’s birthday and I got to meet all of their cousins, aunts and uncles as well. I had a great time playing football with their little cousins and chatting with the rest of the family.
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FANTASTIC ACTIVITES
Another thing I loved about my time in Granada was the activities we did. If I wasn’t spending time with my host “familia” or meeting friends, our Spanish coordinator Simona always organised something for us to do. We went on a day trip to Málaga, on a hike and during the first week, which was particularly hot, Simona even let us use her pool for the day! It was a lot of fun. My favourite activity was probably the hike, but to say that I was exhausted by the end of it was an understatement. We caught a bus early in the day up to cahorros de monachil, where I then embarked on (what in the moment felt like) one of the most intense hikes of my entire life. There were rope bridges from cliff to cliff, places where you had to crawl on your hands under rocks blocking the mountain path and steep hills you had to force yourself to climb. I know this sounds like hell, but with my friends, it was one of the best parts of the trip. My host “madre” had packed me a delicious lunch, and some of us went swimming in one of the bodies of water that you could find all over the mountain. It was such an incredible experience! Another thing I loved to do was explore the city of Granada with my friends. At first, all the streets looked the exact same, but soon we began to know our way around. On weekends, we met up with some of the Spanish friends we made and they took us to Spanish restaurants and cafes and introduced us properly to Spanish tapas, which I was a huge fan of. One of my favourite things to get were definitely patatas fritas. We went shopping in the city centre and in Nevada shopping center, which was the biggest shopping centre I’ve been in and probably the best place I’ve ever been in my life. We also visited Alhambra with our school, a place I’ve always wanted to go to. It’s safe to say that it lived up to my expectations in the best way possible.
SEIZE YOUR CHANCE!
I know that leaving your home and your family to go live in a different country can sound nerve wrecking, but if you ever get the opportunity to study a language abroad, I highly recommend it. By the end of the first week, I could feel my Spanish improving. I have a much deeper understanding about the Spanish language and culture because of my time in Spain. I’ve realised that the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it, and I can say with 100% confidence that I will never forget my time in Granada, and hopefully not the Spanish I learnt there either.