Abbey Road High School Summer Immersion Program in Barcelona, Spain

I had the most amazing time on my Abbey Road trip to Barcelona. I enjoyed spending time with my friends while exploring the city of Barcelona and learning the Spanish Language. I loved how we got free time, because it allowed us to participate in activities that were interesting to us. Some of the highlights from the trip include: a Spanish cooking class, the Sagrada Familia, weekend day trips to beautiful beach towns, Parc Guell, Shopping in El Born (many great boutiques and local shops) and visiting many local markets. The Spanish classes were informative and interesting. I loved how there was a mix between sitting in the classroom and also going out onto the streets to further our studies by talking to locals. I highly recommend this trip, the staff were fun but also safe and made so many new friends!!!

This program was very fun and a great way to experience Spanish culture! The staff was very easy to work with and made me feel accommodated. I learned lots in and outside of class and have made some great friends. We did lots of fun group activities and the staff really did try and find something that everyone would enjoy. They have us many options for fun things to do during free time but also understood that this experience could be over welding and didn’t try to push us too hard. During the weekends we took day trips to other towns close by and it was very cool to be able to experience the different cultures within such a close area. Barcelona really did open my eyes about the world and was a great experience for me Overall this experience was 10/10 and I wouldn’t have wanted it to play out any other way!

I had a great experience in Barcelona with Abbey Road! I made new friends and got to see all the city has to offer with them! Classes were challenging but interesting and helpful. My Spanish skills were strengthened though conversation with my teachers in and out of the classroom. There was also plenty of free time to explore by ourselves as well as group organized activities. Trips to the Picasso and Dali museums and visits to Gaudi’s most famous works give a great look into this beautiful city! Weekend excursions to other towns, including Tarragona, Girona, Cadaqués and Figueres, were full of beach time, museums and shopping. I’m sad to be leaving the program and my new friends here! This program is a great way to spend your summer and experience new and exciting things.

Not only did I grow in my knowledge and speaking of Spanish language and culture, but I made great lifelong friends! The staff was amazing and so supportive, if you were having a bad day or feeling sad, they would really ask what was wrong and actually cared about the answer. The housing and food situation was great and modeled college dorm life. I was in the group apartments and it was a great way to grow close to the group of girls in my apartment. The activities were also super fun and varied in type/ length, so everyone had an activity that catered to their interests. The elective classes were a great way to learn something specific (I took photography and learned a lot!), have a more chill class with your friends, and the teachers are all super sweet and caring. I am so glad I went and miss it so much!

This was my first time participating in a study abroad program. I had heard about teen tours before, but my mom brought up the study abroad program with Abbey Road to help me improve my Spanish. Living in the residence in Barcelona was similar to college life and I wanted to be able to experience that and get a feel for what college might be like. I really liked the small group size because we all really got to know each other and could just hangout as a group. I’m actually going to see a few people from the Barcelona program in December!



I thought the teachers were great! They really encouraged us to speak more Spanish and helped us understand more. Thanks to them my Spanish improved significantly. After I came back home, I was standing in line at the store and the woman in front of me was holding a baby and speaking in Spanish and we ended up having a conversation completely in Spanish. I was able to understand her and actually hold a conversation.



The residential life was amazing. Every week the counselors gave us money for one trip to the grocery store. You would go to the store with the student that you shared your kitchen with. Together you would buy what food you wanted for the week. We did cooking every other night, which was really fun. Learning to cook new recipes and trying new foods was a completely new experience. My favorite recipe was tortilla, which is an egg and potato dish that can be used for tapas or as a whole dish. Simple tasks such as cooking for yourself, buying your own groceries, taking out the trash and doing your own laundry made me become very independent. I’ve been told I have become more adventurous and more spontaneous.


When I was looking at Abbey Road, four weeks seemed like a long time and when I first got there I was really nervous. It just seemed like a really long time to be living with all these people I didn’t know, but by the end I really wish the program had been longer!

I am definitely going to try and go on another study abroad trip during my next summer break or maybe my summer before college. I would definitely go to Spain again.



Abbey Road was fantastic! My daughter Brooke had a blast and the group seemed very nice. All the adults were great and went out of their way when Brooke left her computer in the Barcelona airport during a strike!

Brooke loved that she was in the classroom one hour and the rest of the morning the class was out experiencing and learning in a Spanish environment. Brooke said her Spanish teacher was the best Spanish teacher she had ever had. She also was in the lowest level Spanish class- there were only 2 students in her class and she loved spending time learning- very personal. The entire experience was fantastic! She really liked the dorm and she liked all that they did.

I specifically like that she was able to learn Spanish while experiencing Spanish. Some programs students just stay in the classroom. I like that she was able to enjoy learning in a creative fun way!

Everyone was great and it was very safe!

Barcelona was spectacular. I had so much fun learning a new language and exploring Spanish culture. Picasso museum, Dali art museum and the cathedral were my favorite places in Barcelona. During our stay I learned a lot about Catalonia and Spain in general. I liked that most of our Spanish classes were out of the classroom. Teachers were so nice and caring, especially Alicia. She was such a good teacher, she knew how to keep us engaged and energized during the whole stay. I wish I had more free time to go shopping.

Abbey Road was fantastic! The staff was great and went out of their way on many occasions. My Spanish teacher Alicia was one of the best Spanish teachers I ever had. I came back from Barcelona feeling confident in my ability to hold long conversations.

I loved that we were in a classroom one hour and the rest of the morning the class was out experiencing and learning in a Spanish environment. The dorm was very nice and we enjoyed hanging by the rooftop pool. The food was amazing. We went to a large variety of restaurants and I was able to try a lot of new foods. Overall, the program exceeded my expectations!

Abbey Road was fantastic! My daughter Brooke had a blast and the group seemed very nice. All the adults were great and went out of their way when Brooke left her computer in the Barcelona airport during a strike!

Brooke loved that she was in the classroom one hour and the rest of the morning the class was out experiencing and learning in a Spanish environment. Brooke said her Spanish teacher was the best Spanish teacher she had ever had. She also was in the lowest level Spanish class- there were only 2 students in her class and she loved spending time learning- very personal. The entire experience was fantastic! She really liked the dorm and she liked all that they did.

I specifically like that she was able to learn Spanish while experiencing Spanish. Some programs students just stay in the classroom. I like that she was able to enjoy learning in a creative fun way!

Everyone was great and it was very safe!

I was expecting a lot from the program, but it went above and beyond my expectations. I have always wanted to go to Barcelona. I love the fact that it’s a bigger city and there are a lot of beaches. I wanted to be somewhere where everyone spoke Spanish. The only downside of Barcelona was that they spoke Catalan, which is their version of Spanish, but everyone knows regular Spanish so it ended up working out just fine. I [also] chose the Barcelona program because I also wanted a pre-college experience over a homestay.

For me personally, I was going to be more comfortable living in a residence with other students than living with a family I didn’t know. By the end of the program I wanted to be able to have conversations completely Spanish, no Spanglish and I really did accomplish this. I was able to communicate with the locals and the counselors. The Spanish classes that I took were really helpful because they weren’t your typical Spanish classroom classes. The class took your learning into the real world of Spain. We were able to go out and apply what we were learning and I really appreciated that over a regular classroom setting. I also wanted to be able to manage myself as I would in college like budgeting my expenses. I wanted to be able to provide for myself.
The residence was perfect for what we were dealing with. The kitchen was really nice. There was even a bathroom in my room! I really appreciated having my own space and that’s another reason I chose this program. I’ve never lived in a dorm before, but when I showed my parents where I was living they told me it was the nicest dorm I would ever get to experience so I felt lucky. The location was good. It was close to two metro stations and there was a taxi station just down the road. I really liked the food! I ended up having a really big appreciation for Spanish food by the end of the program. I’m not a seafood person and by the end of the program, I ended up loving seafood. I think the staff took us to the right places to have lunch and dinner. When we had to find food for ourselves we were able to very easily. I also like how we got to cook for ourselves. I learned how to cook authentic Spanish cuisine.

I loved all the staff on my program. They were all so nice and they liked to have fun with us and be safe. They taught us a lot and I really appreciated that. They were all wonderful. I think my instructors are obviously a little different than the instructors I have back home. They really took our learning outside the classroom and into the real world of Barcelona where I learned show much more compared to traditional teaching methods.