The University of Salamanca is the oldest university in Spain and will mark its 800th anniversary in 2018. As it has been said since the old days, if you want knowledge, go to Salamanca, Salamanca is an academic city where many intellectuals gather. Great men including Christopher Columbus who discovered America learned at this University.

Students can choose academic course regardless  humanities or sciences. I belonged to the faculty of philology and studied linguistics and literature. Depending on the subject, the number and length of class varies. The longest class was 3 hours (!). Since I had to take all classes with local students, the level of classes was very high. However, my language skill drastically improved.

Salamanca is a very comfortable city to live in. It is known that pickpocketing and theft can occur in any part of Spain, but those rarely happen in Salamanca. In addition, although the cost of living of Spain is reasonable compared to the other western European nations, Salamanca is known for its low cost of living. I was sharing a house with 3 other people, and the cost of utilities and internet was under 200 Euro per month. Last but not the least, since Salamanca is a student town, people there are used to international students. When I was in trouble, they kindly offered me help.

Since I thought it’s a waste of time to stay indoors, I tried to go out as much as possible. I visited my favorite cafés or restaurants so many times, shop clerks started to recognize my face, talked to me and offered me something free of charge as a favor. I think interacting with the locals is the real pleasure of Study Abroad. The most impressive part of my Study Abroad year is life in a share house. All of my housemates were Spanish, so I had to communicate with them in Spanish. That helped me a lot in improving my speaking ability. At first, since our cultures were so different, I had hard time being accepted. However, as the days passed, we all started to enjoy the difference.

There were so many things I worried about in Study Abroad and they didn’t disappear even after I left Japan. When I felt my heart may break off, my Spanish friends told me “¡No pasa nada!(No Problem!) .” I got this answer from all Spanish friends I talked to, so I believe this is the reason why people in Spain are considered optimistic. Study Abroad life surrounded by cheerful Spanish people will naturally make you smile.

(Updated: October 4, 2017)