Natalie Motolese
Sevilla, España
In the Spring semester of my junior year, I traveled to Seville, Spain to study abroad through a Clemson University directed program. I spent four months, January through May in Seville which is Spain's fourth most populous city and the capital city of Andalusia. During my study abroad, I lived with an amazing host family and studied both Spanish language and culture, as well as business. My program was directed by Clemson University faculty and was operated at CINECU, el Centro Internacional de Estudios Culturales. The program hosted students from Clemson and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All students in our program lived with host families and most students from Clemson completed an academic internship.
Living with a host family was one of the most valuable parts of my study abroad experience. I lived with my host mom Menchu, her daughter Carlota, my roommate Elizabeth, and the family yellow lab named Dana. Menchu was an amazing host mother and treated Elizabeth and me like her own children. Every day, I would wake up and get ready for school and make breakfast. Breakfast was the only meal that Elizabeth and I were expected to prepare on our own. Every day at around 2:30 pm, I would return home from my internship to eat lunch with the family, as most Spaniards do. After lunch, we would take a short siesta before returning to school for more classes. We ate dinner as a family every night around 9:30 pm, which is the typical dinner time for most Spanish families. On top of being such a gracious host mother, Menchu and Carlota provided insights into Spanish life that I would have never learned in a classroom. We watched the news every day during lunch and dinner and Menchu would give us insight into why Spanish politics are the way they are and ask us how it compared to the United States. I will always remember Menchu and Carlota as so vital to my experience in Seville and I am so glad I was able to live with them.
The classes I took while in Spain were all taught in Spanish and ranged from business to literature and film to the art history and culture of Spain. My favorite class was the Art and Culture class taught by my favorite professor Fernando. In Art and Culture, we learned all of the autonomous regions of Spain, the system of government, and population demographics to begin with. We then learned the long, rich history of Spain from the Roman era to the Muslim-ruled period through the Reconquista and the colonial era up to the present day. This class included a few trips to sites in Sevilla that are emblematic of the historic and architectural significance of the city. The film class was split into two parts: Spanish film history and viewing. During the first half of the class, we learned about the history of motion pictures and famous Spanish directors and actors. The second half of the class was dedicated to watching famous Spanish films and discussing their significance within Spanish culture. One film we watched is El Laberinto del Fauno or Pan's Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film is set during the Spanish Civil War and gives a true look into the lives of those affected by the war while maintaining the fantasy world present in most of del Toro's films. The business class I took while in Spain offered new perspectives into Spanish life as our professor explained how the business culture of Spain affects the everyday life of Spaniards. We studied major topics like Mercadona, immigrants from Morocco, and Spain's electricity monopoly. The classes I took not only helped me to experience Spanish culture firsthand, they improved my Spanish listening, speaking, and writing skills dramatically.
My favorite part of studying abroad in Seville was the travel opportunities I had while in Europe. Through our study program, we traveled to Córdoba, Spain, and Madrid, the country's capital. Through these trips, we saw some of Spain's most famous attractions like the Grand Mosque in Córdoba, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and La Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, which is home to Picasso's most famous work, Guernica. After these trips, we were free to plan our own trips on the weekends. The first trip my friends and I organized was to Lisbon, Portugal. While in Portugal, we traveled to Sintra, an old village with a magnificent mountaintop palace. Sintra is one of the most unique, beautiful places I have ever seen and Portugal is a vastly underrated country for tourists. I also traveled throughout Spain to the cities of Barcelona, Málaga, Toledo, and Ibiza. Each Spanish city that I visited has distinct characteristics and showed how much diversity there is within Spain and its different autonomous regions. I, along with most of the other students in my program, got to experience a weekend in Morocco, a country so different from the United States and Spain. In Morocco, I visited Chefchaouen, the Blue City, as well as Asilah, a coastal town. Visiting Morocco was such a valuable experience for me, as I got to see everyday life, including the calls to prayer, in a Muslim-majority country. I was also fortunate enough to travel to the Italian cities of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan during our Easter break, Brussels and Amsterdam, and Lagos, Portugal. The traveling that I did during my semester studying abroad has opened my eyes to so many new cultures and places and I will forever cherish those experiences I had with my friends.