Salamanca, Your New Home

During my program was rebajas month in Spain, so it was more difficult to not spend a lot of money during the week since I enjoy to shop. So if you like to shop, be prepared for that if you travel there over the summer. Make sure you get a good bank account with no overdraft or over seas fees. Even if you have to open up another account with a different bank and then close it when you get home, it will be worth it. Don't bring showering items, soaps, toothpastes because you can readily by them in the local shops and it just takes up space in your luggage for things you might want to bring to Spain and bring home. BE OPEN; to anyone and everything. Push yourself to do everything because you don't want to miss out. And do not sleep when you get there, if you stay active, you won't get hit by jet lag as much.
During the week, we would wake up at 8, walk to class, have classes until 1pm, go back to our resedencias for lunch and then hang out in Salamanca at either the shops, restaurants, the local pool (there are 2), or go to the parks and relax. At night we would either have dinner at our resedencias or go out to one of the many, many restaurants in town. Then it was a fun night out with all of the new friends I had made while staying there. There experience overall was fantastic.
The teachers were very helpful and understanding and really wanted you to learn the language by engulfing you in it. The classes were easy and I learned the language easier than I would in the states. The trips we went on with API, whether day or weekend trips were so much fun. A group of my friends and I even went on a trip on our own during an off weekend to Valencia, which was great.
Besides the great experience I had with the API program, we all really lucked out with the time we chose to go. We were in Spain to experience all of the World Cup and Spain's win! Being able to be in a country that wins something that means so much to all of the people is amazing. That feeling and experience is something I can't really explain in words.