Off to a good start

May 23, 2017

Our dialogue is staying in “La Residencia de La Campana”, which is a residence for students to live in the city. It its not affiliated directly with the University of Navarra, but many students who go there choose to live here. At UNAV there is no requirement for students to live on campus, so many students live in an apartment in the city, or a student residence like La Campana. This residence is new so our rooms are decorated in a modern/minimalist style and it’s like living in a hotel! Our rooms get cleaned once a week and laundry/towels are provided for us. Not to mention, we get three free meals a day in “el comedor”, or cafeteria, in the basement of the residence. The food there is usually very good, but sometimes it is hard to decipher what each dish is made of! This has definitely forced us to learn more Spanish vocab related to food and the dishes that are common to Pamplona.

Our dialogue is relatively small with only 18 students, so it has been pretty easy to get to know each other. Even when we had the first meeting back in Boston, everyone had a friendly and open attitude towards each other since we knew we would be traveling to a foreign country together. Our long journey to Spain made us bond over the best way to catch some sleep on the plane, and what we were most excited to experience once we got here. We eat pretty much every meal together in the cafeteria, so that definitely is a great way to meet everyone and form friendships. It hasn’t even been a week here and I can already feel a connection to everyone in the group, which makes me even more excited for the rest of the time spent together in Spain!

Written By

Danielle Staelen

I'm so excited to be going to Spain! I went there my senior year of high school and knew I wanted to go back, and now I finally am. I'm hoping my time there helps me improve my Spanish and gain fluency so I can use it in my future career. I've always wanted to study abroad because I think there will never be a better time in my life to get to experience different countries, and doing so through the university helps me get the most out of my travels! I cannot wait to explore the ancient kingdoms of Spain on this dialogue, and visit the castle that the Disney Cinderella Castle is based off of! (This is especially interesting to me since I am a HUGE Disney fan!) This journey is an amazing opportunity and I can't wait to see where my travels take me! On to Spain!