Tag: Spain

May Term

Winner of the VFIC Experiential Learning Scholarship

Jack Dawson Spain 2016 During my airplane flight to Spain for the Hampden-Sydney May Term, I was a little apprehensive because I had never studied abroad. I knew Spanish at a decent level, but was concerned I would not be able to converse with my instructors or my host family enough to communicate properly. This was the first trip I had taken where I had to manage getting back and forth to school, handling my own problems (in a foreign language) and exploring a country and its cities on my own (there were some group activities). Since Spanish was the […]

2016 Summer

Korbin Bordonie: Post 3

Korbin Bordonie H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Week 4 The last week in Spain we visited a few other castles and famous landmarks. The biggest breathtaking memorial we went to the last week was Franciso Franco’s grave. The memorial and church inside this mountain was absolutely amazing. Franciso Franco was a fascist leader in Spain despised by many of the natives. Franco was a Spanish general and the Caudillo of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. People despised him for his views and support of the Nazi group. His grave place was built by slaves, […]

2016 Summer

Nick Browning: Post 4

Nick Browning H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Hasta la proxima (Until next time) After finally getting into my routine, it’s already time to leave Alcalá, but this past week has been awesome. On Sunday, my class went to Madrid to go to El Retiro, the Madrid equivalent of Central Park, and afterwards we stayed in Madrid to go to a bull fight. The bull fight was exactly what I thought it would be, and although it’s becoming a controversial topic in Spain, I really enjoyed it. Classes this week were interesting because they were more of a […]

2016 Summer, May Term

Nick Browning: Post 3

Nick Browning H-SC May Term  Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Finally Getting Accustomed Classes this week have been more interesting in the sense that we’re finally being able to see how Spain’s history is affecting life today. Most of the issues that Spanish people are dealing with are due to a combination of medieval history and the struggles that the country faced over the last one hundred years. For nearly forty years, from 1939-1975, Spain was ruled by the dictator Francisco Franco. I’m not going to go into all the details of his reign, but just know that some of […]

2016 Summer

Nick Browning: Post 2

Nick Browning H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Work Hard, Play Hard Our second week in Alcalá was a little less exciting than last week, but that’s because we had to do all of our classwork in the first half of the week, so that we could enjoy a vacation during the second half of the week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were each days full of six hours’ worth of class. For us, that meant covering Spanish history from the medieval times until the early 1900’s. This completed our crash course of 2,500 years of Spanish history that […]

2016 Summer

Korbin Bordonie: Post 2

Korbin Bordonie H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Week three Week three was quite an adventure. We visited many very important Spainish landmarks. The first landmark and most fascinating landmark we visited, in my opinion, was the Royal Palace. You may think your own personal house is big, but try a 1.45 million square foot one. We were not allowed to take any pictures of the inside of the house, but let’s just say the chandeliers were as big as cars and everything was gold. To put it into perspective of how much money is in this building, […]

2016 Summer, May Term

Korbin Bordonie: Post 1

Korbin Bordonie H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 Week one After I stepped off the bus into the city of my new home earlier this week, I noticed things were a lot different in Spain. Along with the extremely fast language they speak in Spain, something as small as the layout of their grid of the city is different. This first week I found myself pulling out my phone quite a bit after I got lost a few times to check my GPS. The grid of the city is set out however it fell hundreds of years ago. […]

2016 Summer, May Term

Nick Browning: Post 1

Nick Browning H-SC May Term Abroad Madrid, Spain Summer 2016 My First Week Back I have been lucky enough to be able to return to Alcalá de Henares for the second time during my career at Hampden-Sydney. We are lucky that we are able to return to the historic town and study at one of the oldest universities in Spain: La Universidad de Alcalá de Henares. When I came back, I felt like I never left. The town hasn’t changed at all over the past two years, and with laws in place that maintain the historic feel, I don’t see […]

2015 Fall

Trent Singleton: Post 4

Trent Singleton IES Barcelona, Spain Fall 2015 The Last Week I cannot believe it is December and that I already have to leave. The time has flown by; this is by far the shortest semester of my college career. In between traveling, acclimating myself to the host culture, and learning the busy city of Barcelona, it feels as if I have only been here for a few weeks. I have had a few down moments—getting lost in the city, having my debit and credit cards stolen—but I do not regret a moment of the experiences I have had here. A […]

2015 Fall

Skyler Whitfield: Post 3

John Skyler Whitfield JYS Seville, Spain Fall 2015 Before we dive in to my experience at University of Seville, I’d like to express my gratitude for the kindness, laughs, and time spent over delicious cuisine that I’ve shared with my Spanish family. It has been an absolute pleasure living with Paqui and Alberto; from giving me an all access pass to any and everything in the refrigerator, accommodating my mom during her stay in Seville, and buying my train ticket to Madrid after my debit card was stolen (just a few things among a long list of kind acts), they […]