Thoughts about upcoming internship in Spain

*written few weeks before internship

Hola, Buenos días! My name is Emilie and my life is going to change quite a lot very soon. Well not completely, only for around seven weeks. My life is changing from living in home with my family to living by myself in a whole other country, Spain. Exciting isn’t it? Well a bit scary also but I’ll manage. So, why am I going to Spain you may ask. Well let me tell you! 

I have always loved traveling and ever since I was little family trips have always been my favorite thing in the world. I love other cultures: the music, the people, the language and especially the food. Youm! That’s why my goal in life is to see the world as much as possible and learn from those experiences. I heard about Erasmus + project when I was still in school studying practical nursing. However back then my schedule was so full that I couldn’t hop in the idea of doing and internship abroad with Erasmus +. Trust me, I really would have wanted to go but I just had to focus on studying. But now that I have graduated, I thought about this opportunity again and decided to finally do it. So here I am.  

Picture from: https://images.app.goo.gl/eqDNmAm9fwP4usi46

My flight to Spain is only few weeks away and I’m super excited! I have attended a prep course where we have discussed all the important topics before leaving. The first thing was finding a place to do the internship in. I knew right away that I wanted to work with children, so I contacted a few local schools in Spain and luckily got the place right away. I am doing my internship in a bilingual private school where the students have classes in both English and Spanish. My main tasks will be helping the children in their school work. So I’m sort of a teachers assistant. After knowing where I am doing the internship at, I had to find a nice apartment to stay in. I got my application from airbnb, and the apartment looks so cozy and neat, just how I like it. It’s located quite near the school, so I get there easily using public transportation. After all of this I finally bought the flight tickets.  

Another important thing I have thought about before leaving is sustainable development and how I could support it during this internship. One obvious way that comes to mind is recycling. Of course it is very important but sustainability is so much more that just that. Before buying a plane ticket I thought, is there any other possible way for me to travel to Spain. Would it be possible to go there by trains and ships for example. In my case that wasn’t possible due to all the luggage but it is good to consider using more environment friendly ways to travel if possible. Travelling by trains isn’t only sustainable but it is a great way to see multiple countries and cities at the same time. One thing I also took care of when planning this trip was to make sure that I have easy access to public transport so I don’t have to rely on cars. Another great way to be more sustainable is to support local businesses instead of mass production companies. Especially in European countries it is very common to see local markets and bakeries which gives a great opportunity to support the locals by buying fruits, vegetables, pastries and bread from them. Here are just a few practical tips.

What about the language barrier? Well yeah, it will be a bit of a struggle but I’m not too worried. Like I already said the school is multi lingual so the teachers and children know at least a bit of English. I have also tried to learn some Spanish my self to ease daily iteractions with others. There are a lot of great language learning apps so learning has been easy and fun. One of my goals for the internship is to learn some Spanish and really get the courage to try and speak Spanish to the locals. Spanish is such a beautiful and useful language so learning it will help me a lot in the future also. 

All and all, I think that this internship will teach me a lot about independence, other people and about myself. I get to see the world like I have always wanted to. And hopefully I make get to know some awesome people there and maybe make friendships that will last a lifetime. I’m really happy to share my story here so that maybe someone will get inspired and give Erasmus + project a try like I did. Thank you for reading, see you next time. ¡Adios!