Alyssa L Media

¡Hola a todos!

I’ll start this off by saying welcome! This is a place where I’ll be keeping updated information about my life and my travels. I’m really excited to be able to share my experiences with you all, so keep reading to find out where I am and what I’m doing right now!

So let’s get into it, shall we? My name is Alyssa Fuentes, and this is my blog. Whether you’re a friend, family member, or just someone who wants to learn about the study abroad experience, welcome! You’re in the right place. For those of you who don’t know, I am spending a semester abroad. It’s been about a week and a half since I arrived in Spain, and I could not be more content. I’ve started my classes, made new friends, and gotten to explore the city and all its wonders.

I have several reasons for choosing to study here. For one, my heritage. I’ve been wanting to visit Spain for basically my whole life, in order to improve my Spanish and to explore the home of many of my ancestors. When the opportunity presented itself, I knew I had to take it. Now, typically when one thinks of studying in Spain, the normal cities that pop into the front of the mind are Madrid and Barcelona. These were the two places I started looking into when I began my study abroad application process. However, after more research, and help from my study abroad advisors, I discovered Alicante.

Alicante is a city on the eastern coast of Spain, right up against the Mediterranean. It has a university, and is also home to one of many University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) sites. USAC is one of ASU’s study abroad partners, and is ultimately the program I chose to apply for. USAC’s Alicante program offered me the chance to spend a semester solely studying Spanish while exploring Spanish culture in a city which isn’t normally home to tourists.

So far in Alicante, I’ve done some pretty cool stuff like hiking to the top of El Castell de la Santa Bárbara, visiting La Playa de San Juan, and starting a sailing course! The first week here was a whirlwind of orientation, meeting new people, and getting to know the area, but now that I’ve had some time to rest, I’m getting into a nice routine here and figuring out my daily schedule. We’ve had some pretty heavy rains recently – here, by the Mediterranean, August/September months can call for a gota fría, which is essentially a weather movement that causes extremely strong winds and rainfall, and can also result in flooding. Due to this, classes were cancelled and we’ve all been staying indoors for the past few days. We have been fortunate enough not to be hit too badly by the storm, but it’s still important for us to keep an eye on the news. Once everything clears up, though, we will be back to school and getting in to the full swing of things.

Now, if you’ve made it this far down the page, don’t worry! Most of my posts aren’t going to be as general as this one – consider it the exposition. My next blog posts are going to focus on more specific details and stories about my life here, as well as pictures and videos of my travels. And now that I’ve brought you all generally up to speed on what my life will be like for the next few months, we can get into the good stuff. Stay tuned for my next post, and feel free to contact me with any questions/comments!