FYI

Hellooo all- so I'm officially back in the States as of a few days ago. I have one final wrapping-up kind of post all ready to go, but before I put that out there I thought I'd do a quick little FYI type of post. I just thought I'd share a couple of things I've realized or learned about studying abroad or traveling in general, if anyone is interested, because this is supposed to be an informative study abroad blog. If not, go ahead and skip to the next (and last!) post and that will be that.

I guess I'll do this list-style, I think that would work best. I'll just jump right into it then- here goes.

1. Choosing a study abroad program. I did RESEARCH. It's not something to just jump into. These past six months have been the most formative, most fun, and most amazing months of my entire life, so I suggest putting a little thought into the program and location of your study abroad semester. There are actually a lot of good reviews of programs online, and you can do tons of research on different cities and countries. People are a great resource too - if you know anyone who has used the program you're looking at or has been to your country of choice, give them the third degree to get your information. If you're interested in Spain, especially Valencia or Salamanca, and/or if you're looking at ISA (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), I'm your girl, feel free to shoot me an email: angelaskowronek223@pointloma.edu
2. Month vs. Semester. After doing both a semester and a month program in Spain, my advice on which to choose is very clear in my mind: SEMESTER. I know sometimes that's not always possible, but if the debate is just that you're nervous about spending an entire semester abroad because you think you won't like it or it's too long to be away - PLEASE go for the entire semester if you can. My month in Salamanca absolutely flew by, I swear time went faster for that month. My semester in Valencia even passed in hyper-speed. So if you study abroad for just a month, be prepared to aprovechar el día even more than normal so you can get the most out of the experience.
3. Traveling Europe with RyanAir. Anyone who has traveled with RyanAir probably has a love-hate relationship with them. For one thing, they are ridiculously cheap. I probably flew RyanAir a dozen times over the past six months, and I got some really great deals, like round trip Valencia-London for 70 euro, or Valencia-Mallorca for 8 euro. So that's awesome, but there are 3 main catches that you should be prepared for. So be aware of them, but overall RyanAir is worth it if you follow all the rules and are prepared for what it's like.
1. The dreaded carry-on. RyanAir is super strict on their carry-on rules. You can look up the dimensions of allowable carry-ons online- that's how I bought my backpack that I always used for travel (be careful with backpacks though, as you have to account for how they expand once you have stuff in them). Most people use little rolly suitcases, but that's not always ideal for student travelers because you have to run around cities with all your stuff before hostel check-in times and stuff like that. Sometimes a backpack is easier. Anyways, you have to fit your carry-on into a little blue metal box thing 'easily' at the gate, or they'll make you check it for a cool 60 euro. So make sure your carry-on is going to fit FOR SURE, because they can be really picky about that.
2. RyanAir airports aren't always in the city. In fact, for most of the places we flew to with RyanAir, we had to take a bus into our destination city. In other words, once you get there, you're still not there. There are almost always bus companies that go from the airports into the city, but be careful if you ever fly in on a Sunday, because the buses don't always run, and be careful if you fly in really late, as the buses may not run any more. Usually it's not a problem, just kind of a pain and a little extra cost.
3. The actual flight- bring headphones! Bless those poor souls who have to learn this lesson the hard way. The flight attendant people sell stuff the ENTIRE time on every flight - lottery tickets, perfume, purses, food, wine, etc. Basically, they're just talking the whole time and you'll be happy if you can crank up your music to drown them out.
4. Packing. I packed with the skill of a 3 year old - I didn't plan very well at all and ended up having to throw away a bunch of stuff. So to avoid this, I would suggest not bringing anything you don't plan on using about every week. Or maybe, only bring things you would theoretically be able to part with, if you had to. Maybe that's a bit extreme, but I guess I'm trying to say, don't bring 10 different colors of nail polish for a semester study abroad program, eh? Not that I did that or anything, I'm just saying...don't let yourself fall too far into the "what-if" packing mode.
5. Travel-size shampoo. I highly recommend buying a travel-sized shampoo (and conditioner, body wash, contact solution, etc.) in the US before you go. I couldn't find travel-sized toiletries like these in Spain besides toothpaste, and they were super handy to have when I was traveling in between my two programs, because you can just keep refilling them, and they don't take up so much room and are light (and carry-on friendly).
6. Stuff to bring. There were a few things we found to be very helpful while traveling, things you should always have on you. These include: a reusable water bottle, a pen and paper, a watch, and an iPod or some other wi-fi enabled device. The reusable water bottle for obvious reasons - you can fill them up even at sinks wherever you are, and you save money on buying water all the time. The pen and paper were useful to us in a million different situations - taking down directions, writing out addresses we couldn't pronounce for taxi drivers in foreign countries, taking down Facebook names of new friends we made, having people draw us little maps on how to get places, etc. It's just a good idea. A watch, also for obvious reasons. And finally, the iPod. I have an iPod touch and it saved my life traveling more times than I can count, especially when none of us had cell phones. If you look hard enough, you can always find wifi in any city- we became professionals at picking up free signals. It was how we got in contact with our couchsurfing hosts, how we emailed our parents or friends to tell us we made it to our next country safely, how we looked up hours or addresses or directions to different places, how we figured out train schedules and ticket information, etc.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but like I said, if you're thinking of studying abroad and have some questions, I'd love to help you if I can, so feel free to send me an email: angelaskowronek223@pointloma.edu. Otherwise, pop back here in a day or two for my last blog post.