Welcome to my blog. As you read from my blurb I’m a New Media major at SUNY Purchase. I chose to go to Prague as an escape from the known. I didn’t know much about the place before I left and decided to keep it that way. I wanted to start over in a new location and discover a new way of life. The following entries document this process in the most public way possible, through an online blog!

Of course, when planning my arrival in Spain, I had to pick the one day in all of history that Madrid airport had to close because of snow, January 9, 2009. It just wouldn’t make any sense to do it any other way right, I mean who doesn’t want to arrive in a foreign country at 9 o’clock in the morning running on about 3 hours of sleep and with four pieces of luggage, and then drag that luggage all throughout an enormous airport? And of course it is much more fun to have to find and then buy a ticket for the metro to take you to the other terminal when there are perfectly good, free buses sitting outside that are not running because the drivers have never seen snow before. This part was especially funny to me, because can you imagine if the airports in NY closed for a few inches of snow??

Anyway after finally arriving at the correct terminal the waiting in lines began. The Christmas balls that hung from the ceilings like the one below were definitely not reflecting any Christmas or New Year’s cheer. I have never seen anything like it in my life–NOBODY knew ANYTHING! It was incredible! The person at the end of the first line told me that the flight had been delayed and to watch the monitors, on which nothing ever appeared because the airport was a perfect scene of chaos with nothing coming in or going out. I felt like I was in a movie, maybe the Tom Hanks’ one… “Terminal.” Nobody even really knew if they should stand in lines or just find somewhere to sit and wait because the people in the counter had no answers, even to simple questions like “can you put me on a plane for tomorrow so I can go to a hotel and sleep?” Luckily, I have been well conditioned to airports and rapidly changing travel plans, and actually managed to pass the day relatively calm and in good humor, because I realized that I was eventually going to get where I was going, I was not late for anything and I was not in danger (just totally and completely BORED and exhausted LOL! I think if I would have had to stand in one more line even for five more minutes I would have just fallen over!). Really the only terrible thing was looking at all the empty ticket counters and thinking how much faster the lines would move if they actually had enough people working–which led to these pictures that I think kind of sum up the day… (the screens say “closed”, and notice the huge line of people in background, yeah NOT COOL!)

Finally I got a ticket for the next day and also got to get rid of two of my bags! Luckily there was a shuttle to and from the hotel and when I got to my room I called Charo, my contact here for the program, to let her know what happened and what time my flight was in the morning. I definitely fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning I arrived to find the airport in slightly better working order but still an absolute mess. There were several people sleeping propped up against the walls or their luggage and I felt very fortunate to have been able to get a hotel room. When I got through security I found a group of people just staring at a huge set of monitors hanging from the ceiling and realized that the departure gates had not been posted yet for several flights, including mine. As flights were posted people broke off from the group, usually running, only to be replaced by others. Soon I was the one walking as fast as I could to my gate because I only had 20 minutes until the posted departure time, but I needn’t have worried because nobody from Iberia even showed up at the gate until 3 hours later.

The plane ride to Oviedo was great: it was sunny out and we weren’t all that far up so I could see everything! We flew over the Cantabrian Mountains which form Asturias’ natural southern border with Leon, and suddenly encountered such an amazing emerald landscape that I thought we must have taken a detour over Ireland. It was so beautiful and I am hoping to take a ride through some of it soon. What is neat about the city is that there are some parts where of course it is hard to see anything but the buildings but as you get closer to the city limits, you will turn a corner every once in a while and be greeted by the mountains you had forgotten were surrounding you. They are just amazing and I will never be able to take enough photos of them to do them justice. Here is the first view I had of Asturias, from the plane. It is absolutely gorgeous and I cannot imagine having chosen or wanting to be anywhere else for this semester.

I don’t want you guys to get bored, so I’m going to end this post for today and post several more in the coming weeks to get you all caught up, including (but not limited to) how great Charo, the contact here is, my fabulous roommate and piso (apartment), my classes and the University, and my upcoming trip to Granada. Hasta Luego!
~Molly Jo

Oviedo is in northern Spain, also known as España verde or Green Spain because of the lush vegetation that covers much of the mountainous area. Of course, to keep everything green… it RAINS a lot however once you get used to carrying both a paragua and sunglasses with you at all times, it’s not a big deal. Even though it gets cold some days, it hardly ever snows even in the middle of winter, and it also does not get as hot as southern Spain does during the summer. The population is around 220,000, but I’m not going to go into a huge list of statistics about it because you can look it up on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oviedo if you want to know more!

Well I suppose this post is long enough for one day.  Thanks for reading and talk to you soon!

As most of you know, and for those of you who don’t, my name is Molly, I’m a junior at SUNY Geneseo, and I am spending this spring semester of 2009 in Oviedo, Spain! I am studying Spanish at the Universidad de Oviedo through their “Cursos de Español para Extranjeros.” I am taking Vocabulario, Gramática, Traducción (inglés a español) and Fonética.

Disclaimer: I know this next part reads like an advertisement, but it really is true and I hope that maybe it will help someone who is starting to look at study abroad…

When I first started looking at study abroad programs, Madrid and Cadiz were about the only Spanish city names I knew. However, I knew that as a SUNY Geneseo student, I could travel through any other SUNY school’s program, and found an awesome website (http://www.sunysystemabroad.com/) that made it easy to find out where in the world I could go. I was looking for a program that was going to seriously immerse me in the spanish language, and for this reason I steered away from some of the programs in major cities because I knew that there would be a lot of US students, and therefore a lot of English. I was also hoping to find a program that allowed its students to live in apartments rather than with host families. Some students want totally the opposite, and the cool thing is that because there are so many different progrmas to choose from it’s easy to find one that fits perfectly with your preferences. The website was great because it gave a lot of information about each program and also provided links to the sites about the programs on the websites of their repective universities.

Alright enough of that After much paperwork (actually less than I expected!), a trip to the postoffice to get my passport, a trip to NYC (my first ever!) to get my visa, a couple of trips to the financial aid office, a trip to New Paltz for Orientation and a couple last minute trips to Dollar General I headed for Oviedo, Spain!

~Molly Jo

So I have been back home for almost two weeks, and it feels boring and weird to say the least.

Finals were alright, and by the end of the month I’ll have my grades back.

I left Ireland on December 19th, and thank goodness by flight was on time and everything was good except that we had to circle in the air for about an hour at JFK because of the “snow” storm. Canada and I packed up my whole life in two suitcases and two carry ons… this included some last minute sacrifices I made and left behind some things. Leaving was not stressful until after a few days where I started to feel lonely and bored with myself.

It is the strangest thing to go from living with 4 people in a little hole to reverting back to a comfy lifestyle. At first it was really exciting and fun, with Christmas right after, I was busy with everything and I enjoyed all the food and company, but most of all… a real shower. It was really good to see all of my friends and family and it almost felt unreal, because so much has happend and it’s really hard to explain to someone what “it” was like. The night I got back I spent it with someone special and we devoured chinese to celebrate my return.That wore off and now I’m debating about which classes to take for next semester and where to get a job.

I miss Ireland and it’s silly friendly people, and all of the great people that I met along the way ( we still chat on Skype as often as we can!) and in a weird way I miss our budget dinners and our fabulous nights out and weekends away filled with adventure. I feel that I learned so much about myself and others that can’t be found in books or in classes, but found within people. I came home calmer and older, and I can with out a doubt say that those were the best 4 months spent away from home, it tested so many of my friendships and realationships and taught me a lot of responsibility,and it’s something that everyone should consider doing.

All in all, I’m happy to be home, but there are times where I want to be back in the hole, eating fish n’ chips sippin’ wine and planning our weekend trip.