Getting fresh air and walking around, by Elena Grozdanova

While studying abroad in Spain, I have drastically opened my mind to different cultural norms and individuals. Coming into this experience, I believed that it would be very interesting and unique to interact with other people from a different culture and hoped to improve my Spanish. Overall, studying abroad has helped me achieve exactly that.

Even though there have been thousands of smaller moments during which I have ran into cultural differences between Spain and USA, one particular circumstance stands out the most in my mind. I had been living in Sevilla for about two weeks when I lost my iphone X headphones. I wasn’t too triggered by this, since I knew I could simply go to the nearest store to purchase a pair. I was very wrong.

I started searching for headphones in grocery stores, then a large department store called Corte Ingles, then visited about 7 different phone company stores. Not a single place had iphone headphones. Afterwards, I found an apple product carrier in a nearby mall and visited that place, which also didn’t have headphones. 6 hours later, I was extremely annoyed at the difficulty of purchasing something so easily accessible in the USA. I initially began judging Spain and thought “how could these people not sell headphones anywhere”? Later on, I began to realize that I was judging Spain and the culture over there by comparing it to the place I live back home. I eventually ended up purchasing a blututh pair of headphones, which broke a month later. I’ve provided a photo of them below. What typically would’ve taken less than half an hour back home took up half of my day in Spain.

Throughout my time studying abroad, I got used to the fact that everything takes much longer. Walking to and from the metro/bus station, riding the bus/metro, and walking to my destinations all added up to much more time than what I was used to spending back home with my car. A simple errand, such as buying groceries, going to the gym, or purchasing headphones takes much more time in Spain. I initially struggled with this a lot and didn’t like having to walk everywhere; however, I now love it. I appreciate getting fresh air and walking around everywhere. I value the fact that I have this opportunity instead of being stuck in a car. I truly think that I will miss being able to walk as much once I am back home in the USA.