My host family made my experience

I spent a semester in Bilbao attending the University of Deusto and having been many years since my experience I have had time to reflect on my experience as a whole. First off, if you are looking for a true academic experience I think you may be disappointed. Before attending the program I did not know what the setup was like for classes. It turns out when you arrive everyone takes a test after which you are sorted out into classes depending on your skill level. Within these classes are primarily all fellow American study abroad students, I was under the impression we would be taking classes with fellow Spaniards. While I was placed in the intermediate level class it felt more like the first semester of Spanish you take freshman year of high school. The curriculum consisted of workbooks that seemed fairly pointless and some actual writing assignments. All and all not the academic experience I was looking for. Outside of school however was a much better story. I decided to do a homestay and am very glad I did. The ladies I lived with taught me more of the Spanish and Basque language than I learned in class as well as more about the culture than my fellow American classmates were going to teach me. Bilbao is a wonderful city, it was clean and safe and I can't wait to return. Living day to day life in Bilbao was really what made it special; stopping at the bakery on the way to the metro, meeting up with friends for café con leche and churros. API and our resident advisor Andrea took excellent care of myself and fellow API students. We went on several cool excursions from flying to Barcelona to attending the Cirque de Soleil performance that came through town. Lastly I really enjoyed the small group of students that were in my API semester. I like that there were so few of us we could all really bond and enjoy each other.