161 Things to Do Abroad

In honor of Cornell and what I am missing, I thought I would construct a list of my own 161 things to do while studying abroad in Santander, Spain. I will draw from my own experiences and those of the other Cornell students over the next year in northern Spain to document our experiences. Some of these will be specific to Santander or Spain, while others will be a must for any study abroad experience.

1. Miss your flight at Stansted Airport. Rage and blackout to cope with the pain.

2. The next day, throw out half of your belongings into a trash can at Stansted Airport. Imagine that there is now a well dressed homeless man sporting a dress and high heels while he looks at his new poster of Johnny Depp.

3. Attempt to enjoy the outdoors of the surrounding area. Get poured on while you are kayaking along the Sella River.

4. Talk to a Belgian and wish you spoke more than one language well, all the while wanting to mutter “waffles” under your breath.

5. Meet your Spanish classmates near the beach on a Thursday night. Have them tell you 3am is too early to go home.

6. Take shots in between classes at the café in the Caminos building.

7. Hang your clothes out to dry for four days because it keeps raining.

8. Meet people from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Norway, Spain and the UK in the same day.

9. Complain about siesta.

10. Love siesta.

11. Eat morcilla, turn into a vampire.

12. Have multiple conversations a day about internet access.

13. Move into a place because it has an oven. Forget to ask if oven works before moving in. Learn oven doesn’t work, then learn you are just stupid and it does work.

14. Make a chocolate hazelnut cake for a birthday, find that powdered sugar isn’t commonly sold in Spain so make the frosting out of whipped cream from a can and Norcilla.

15. Buy cheap liquor: .50 euro liters of wine, 4 euro bottles of Vodka or Gin, 3 euro bottles of flavored liqueur.

16. Make up a nonexistent shot of vodka, gin and tequila.

17. Almost pee your pants in Potes.

18. Drive 2 hours to get to the Picos de Europa only to find them hidden by fog.

19. Get followed by a local from bar to bar to churro place.

20. Search everywhere for peanut butter, Mexican tortillas, and maple syrup.

21. Encounter language barriers due to losses in translation.

22. Get your head rubbed by old Spanish women while sitting on benches.

23. Buy your study abroad country’s version of Monopoly.

24. Learn only the swear words in new languages.

25. List off all the words and phrases you know in a given language to a native speaker.

26. Butcher another language.

27. Read a classic in Spanish. My recommendations: El guardian entre el centeno, or The Catcher in the Rye or any Harry Potter

28. Forget how to speak English, reducing your fluent languages count to zero.

29. Get confused by the metric system, calendars starting with Monday, dates beginning with the day, and military time.

30. Hate the Oficina de Extranjeros.

31. Get your NIE.

32. Cook actual Spanish food.

33. Place in an international tortilla competition.

34. Go to Ribadesella for the races at the end of August. Camp out on the beach with a wet towel. Learn to be better prepared and to hate Ribadesella.

35. Compare everything to your stay at Ribadesella, admit that everything is better and you can’t complain.

36. Completely stand out in a crowd of locals.

37. Explore Cantabria. Visit Comillas, Santillana del Mar, and San Vincente del Barquero.

38. Drink sidra, vino, sangría, and calimocho.

39. Visit the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

40. Eat pintxos in San Sebastian.

41. Watch your favorite movies in Spanish.

42. See Shakespeare at the Globe Theater in London.

43. Go to every beach in Santander.

44. Write a blog.

45. See the aqueducts in Segovia.

46. Stay classy. See an opera in Madrid.

47. Eat Moroccan at Arabia in Madrid.

48. Decide to go to Morocco after eating at Arabia.

49. Learn that Moroccan food doesn’t actually include the falafel you had at Arabia.

50. Have a picnic in Parque Retiro.

51. See Guernica at the Reina Sofia.

52. Go on a pub crawl.

53. Stand at the middle of Spain. (The zero kilometer marker of Spain in Puerta del Sol).

54. Eat chocolate, beer, fries and waffles in Belgium.

55. Enjoy your visit to Bruges. Find out you might be slightly retarded or perhaps actually grew up on a farm.

56. Ride a camel in Morocco.

57. Break a bed in Algeciras.

58. Have a man throw money back at you.

59. Jam out with a French travelling band.

60. Pick an orange in Andalucia. Learn that nobody eats them because they are too bitter.

61. Worry that strikes are going to mess up your travel plans.

62. Almost lose your lunch after riding the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar.

63. See real flamenco in Sevilla.

64. Walk across international borders like it is no big deal.

65. Walk Las Ramblas in Barcelona.

66. Go up the tower of la Sagrada Familia.

67. Get blown away by the Alhambra in Granada.

68. See the arches of the Mezquita in Cordoba.

69. Go on the Trineo Ruso in the Sierra Nevada or die trying.

70. Ride a gondola in Venice.

71. Don’t ride the gondola in Venice. That costs 80 euro. Instead take a gondola ferry across the main canal for 50 cents.

72. Buy Venetian Carnival masks.

73. Visit Verona, the setting of Romeo and Juliet. Grope Juliet’s statue. See the graffiti wall on her house.

74. Become a pilgrim and visit Saint Anthony’s Basilica in Padova. Wonder what Saint Anthony did.

75. Attend an anti fascist poetry reading in Bologna.

76. Look at the towers of Bologna, wonder if all towers in Italy are leaning.

77. Get hit on by an Italian heroin addict who used to teach at NYU at an anti fascist concert.

78. Attend said anti fascist concert in the basement of an unmarked building after filling out paperwork divulging personal information. Use fake personal information.

79. See the Duomo in Milan.

80. Couch Surf. Meet a wide range of people that you never imagined encountering.

81. Fall several months behind on your blog.

82. Vacation on the French Riviera.

83. Spend your New Years at the Eiffel Tower.

84. Laugh at the crowd surrounding the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

85. See the Swiss Alps.

86. Eat an insane amount of gelato, pasta, and pizza in Italy.

87. Meet Italians that cook well enough you don’t need to go to Italy for food.

88. Learn how to cook that food from them.

89. Impress those Italians with chili and jello shots.

90. Pretend to be a Gladiator in the Coliseum.

91. Pretend to be a philosopher in the Forum.

92. Walk along the remains of the Berlin Wall.

93. Eat a ton of strudel.

94. See the schlosses (plural) in Potsdam.

95. Eat currywurst.

96. Be disappointed by currywurst, try a weisswurst.

97. Dislike the weisswurst. Decide Wisconsin does wursts better.

98. Celebrate Easter in Prague. See all the beautifully decorated eggs. They are real!

99. Celebrate Easter in Prague with the tradition of boys whipping girls with sticks and girls then buying the boys shots.

100. Walk around in Castle District in Prague. Notice the tower isn’t right at the top.

101. Cross Charles Bridge, rub everything that can be rubbed.

102. Drink too many liters in Munich, get lost in BMW Welt.

103. Enjoy a beer garden leisurely.

104. See a fairytale castle, you can’t beat Neuschwanstein.

105. Take an overnight train.

106. Eat paprikash and goulash in Budapest.

107. Debate weather London’s or Budapest’s Parliament building is better. (Budapest’s is.)

108. See a real opera in Vienna.

109. Drink port wine in Porto.

110. Be in Porto for the Burning of the Ribbons (massive party).

111. Actually go on the trip with the Caminos class.

112. Realize the Soviets took over almost all of Eastern and a lot of Central Europe and it sucked.

113. Go surfing in the Atlantic.

114. Hike in the fjords of Norway (read: go to Fat Camp).

115. Enjoy a home cooked meal in a foreign country by a foreign mother.

116. Sleep in an airport. On purpose.

117. Go to London. Study instead of sightseeing.

118. Find an apartment a day before you move into it.

119. Sneak extra luggage onto Ryanair.

120. Say goodbye to your foreign home.

121. Stay in Spain for an internship.

122. See the Tour de France.

123. Meet up with friends in another country.

124. Think you escaped the Ithaca weather only to experience the rainiest month in the history of Bilbao.

125. See a concert at the Guggenheim.

126. Clad yourself in red and white and head down to Sanfermines in Pamplona for the running of the bulls.

127. Take shots with your bosses at work.

128. Realize that you would never have had to get coffee as an intern in Spain.

129. Wonder how anything gets done in Spain in the summer when everyone goes on vacation.

130. Celebrate your 21^st birthday pointlessly. You could already drink legally.

131. Party in random pueblos in Spain.

132. Enjoy hour long plus lunch breaks at work. Try to beat the 4 hour 15 minute record.

133. Try calimocho ice cream.

134. Learn that Professor Snape is called Rogue in French.

135. Wonder at the stained glass in Sant Chapelle.

136. Keep in contact with your host family.

137. Search for the best falafel in Europe (top contenders imho: Rei de Kebab (Padua), Mr. Falafel (Brussels), L’as du Falafel (Paris)).

138. Go to a bull fight. Cheer for the torero.

139. Wonder what that person really meant when they said the first floor.

140. Try to see all 1000 Places to See Before You Die that are in Europe. Fail miserably but appreciate what you have seen.

141. Fly an obscure airline home. My pick: Pakistan International Airlines.

142. Wish you could respond "con mis ojos" when your boss asks you "como lo ves?"

143. Almost get used to boxed milk.

144. Look forward to finally coming to America.

145. Follow US news and change your mind.

146. Get a little grossed out every time you walk past the meat counter at lupa (pig feet, ears, cow tongues)

147. Make it on Spanish television.

148. Eat escargot in a French restaurant with everyone watching you.

149. Send a snail flying as you crack under the pressure.

150. Never see a lemming in Norway.

151. Get asked if you ever actually studied in Europe.

152. Wonder if you actually did.

153. Travel across Spain on your new best friend: Alsa bus.

154. Use a Spanish paddle ball set to play American baseball with German kids at the beach

155. Pop open a bottle of wine along the river in Paris. Take swigs with your friends.

156. Appreciate Nadine Porter for all she does. Send her a post card from Paris.

157. Meet some truly incredible people.

158. Wonder if you will ever come back to Spain.

159. Fly home at long last.

160. End up broke and happy.

161. Struggle on the last twenty of your 161 things list but in the end finish strong.

I also figured I should start a list of tips for people who are doing this program, or even more generally, any study abroad program. Some are common sense or maybe opinions, but this is some of the stuff I wish I had known before coming, or glad I did do just by chance.

1. Fly into Europe with someone you know. I flew into London a few days early with friends so I could travel a little before classes. It was a nice, slow adjustment to Europe. I had people I knew with me to ease the transition, and I was able to deal with the initial shock of being on a new continent while not having to deal with a language barrier at the same time. I found really cheap flights on studentuniverse.com from JFK to London Heathrow. The only problem was getting from London to Santander. RyanAir flies from London Stansted to Santander, and it is usually reasonable, but only if you are flying without luggage. RyanAir loves to kill you with luggage fees and are really strict about their luggage rules. EasyJet flies from London to Bilbao, which might be a better choice if you have a lot of luggage, because extra bags are a lot more reasonable with EasyJet, and getting from Bilbao is relatively easy by train or bus, it’s just a bit more of a hassle.

2. Which brings me to my second tip: pack your luggage in accordance to the rules of the airlines you are using. ALL of the airlines. Transatlantic flights are usually more generous in their allowances than flights within Europe, so be prepared. You don’t want to be throwing half of your belongings into a trash can at Stansted Airport, but it could happen if you don’t want to be charged outrageous fees. Know that you can always buy things over here. If you do over pack, wear your heaviest clothes and layer. You may be uncomfortable for a flight, but it could save you from tossing out even more belongings or seeing a homeless man staring at your poster of Johnny Depp wearing your old dress outside of the airport.

3. Cantabria specific: Come to the first language class if at all possible. I didn’t do this, but wish I had been able to. I missed it because my internship ran into August, and I wouldn’t have passed up the internship, but if it makes sense, enroll in the August language class. You get to have smaller classes, get better at the language, and have the best weather to enjoy the beaches. You also learn the city really well. A month in and I am still a little lost when it comes to the city, but the other Cornell students, who have been here a month longer, really know their way around.

4. Take your time in finding a place to live. I rushed into a place because I really wanted to settle into an apartment before classes started. Living with a host family is expensive, but it really helps to adjust to the culture and experience home life in Spain. That being said, I am glad I started searching right away. I both searched online and went to the piso board at the University. I found a decent place, but only looked at two places. I definitely feel I could have found a better place had I taken another week to look.

5. Live with Spanish or Erasmus students. This will force you to speak Spanish when you are home. Erasmus students like to speak English too, though, so make it clear you want to practice your Spanish.

6. Do everything you can in Spanish. Buy a book in Spanish to read. Watch TV in Spanish. If you keep a blog like I did, try to write the majority of your entries in Spanish. Speak as much Spanish as possible. Make the other Cornell students speak Spanish with you when you hang out. It is too easy to speak English, force yourself to learn the language.

7. Travel as much as you can. This includes within Spain in addition to Europe. Make the best of your breaks by planning ahead to save money and book better trips. Go to as much class as you can, but don’t worry about missing some days. You came to Europe to experience the cultures and travel, so take advantage of what is here.