3 Months in Sunny Seville

Wow! I can officially say I've fallen in love with Seville, Spain, and Andalucia in general. I'm so grateful to Adelante Abroad for helping me have this incredible experience. The staff was very friendly and timely in helping me through the application and interview process, and the in-country contact, SIGE, was always around to answer my questions. I asked for an international business internship, but what I really received was a marketing internship. Although I wasn't able to gain experience in a field I'm interested in pursuing, I did gain some useful knowledge, although I did get lots of "intern" jobs like organizing and researching, which was expected but not necessarily great experience. However, my company was amazing because they were very accommodating with the fact I was visiting and would want to travel, and my coworkers were super friendly and funny. I also had unlimited free coffee and fruit, which was amazing. Something that was both a pro and a con is that my internship was in English. I wasn't proficient in Spanish, so it was good I could communicate with my coworkers and understand my tasks, however, my main goal was full Spanish immersion, so working for 5ish hours a day in English didn't help! And I didn't know the internship would be in English beforehand. However, if you are intentional about working on your language skills, there are a variety of other opportunities such as intercambios, language classes, and talking with locals (all of which I recommend). Overall, I did enjoy my internship - mostly because of the environment and the coworkers rather than the actual jobs I did - and I felt as if I did learn more about business!

Housing was a slightly different deal. First of all, I was in the neighborhood Los Remedios, which is very nice, but was a good 30 minutes by foot or bus to pretty much anything I did. However, public buses in Seville are great and easy to navigate, so that was a fun experience! Although I would have sometimes appreciated being in the city center, it was nice to live in a different area. The apartment itself was functional - private room, no AC (do NOT expect AC in Europe, but fans and strategically-timed adventures to air conditioned locations make it bearable) but I did have a fan (after a couple of weeks), a small kitchen (no stove), a small bathroom (with little hot water), and a small living area. A few things were broken, but my landlord was good at fixing them (he even bought a new toaster when I told him the old one was broken). However, my roommates were a bit of a mess. My landlord wasn't always great at communicating when new people would be arriving (I texted him first to ask if a new roommates would be replacing the old ones, and was told one was arriving the next day), nor did he tell me I would have a male roommate after the first two female roommates left. It would have been nice to know co-ed housing was possible. Two of the three roommates were perfectly fine and quiet, but one roommate didn't follow the house rules and brought several guys over, practiced flamenco dancing and singing loudly after 11pm, and never cleaned the kitchen. But roommates are always a gamble, so just be flexible! Honestly I mostly just slept in my apartment because there was so much to see and do in the city, so it didn't ruin my experience.

The language classes at Giralda were wonderful, and a great way to explore the city with the organized (but not always free) activities and a great way to make friends. I was sad they were only for 2 weeks, and I ended up taking more Spanish classes my last month at a different location (Sevilla Habla, near my internship) because I wanted to improve my Spanish. I highly recommend this, as it helped me make new friends after those I had already met left.

As far as the city itself, I 100% recommend interning in Seville! Barcelona and Madrid have the "big city appeal," but the Andalucia region is incredibly friendly and fun. And it's lively in its own way - most people stay out to between 2am-6am, although I don't recommend making a habit of that. Also, the city is very walkable (unlike Barcelona which is spread out and transportation is expensive) and there is so much to see for every person - theaters, shopping (literally everywhere), bars, museums, music concerts (and so many amazing street musicians!), historical buildings, the Isla Magica Theme Park (highly recommend), parks, and an aquarium. I don't really like going out and partying, so I found friends to walk alongside and kayak in the canal, visit the theme park and the aquarium, and eat at sushi joints, tapas bars, and Italian restaurants with me! I was never bored, and even though I traveled almost every weekend, I always looked forward to returning "home" to Seville every single time! The only downside is that flying out of the Seville airport/getting to some other places is a little harder or more expensive than Madrid or Barcelona. However, I visited Paris, Lisbon, Cadiz, Carmona, Granada, Barcelona, and 3 cities in Morocco (via We Love Spain - I highly recommend) during my three months! But there are so many things to see in the city and in the Andalucia region that you don't need to travel very far every weekend! Although I enjoyed my weekends traveling, my weekends in Seville were just as fun!

All in all, here is my advice: Do it! You'll be nervous and unsure, but you will grow so much. Also, I recommend longer programs! I really started to feel settled after the first month, I felt at home after the second month, and I didn't want to leave after the third month! I made dozens of friends from around the world, went on many adventures, took thousands of photos, got lost, said the wrong thing, learned how to shop and order in Spanish, watched soccer games with locals, ate waaaaaaay too much food, gained confidence in my navigational skills, learned how to communicate despite a minimal vocab, and so much more. And I loved every minute of it. Spain is so very different from what I am used to, but I can't wait to return in the future!