BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Holá, España

By Sophia Wayne, age 16 | October 1, 2016

Click the Buzz Me button to receive email notifications when this writer publishes a new article or a new article in this column is published.

Sophia Wayne, Charlotte Baird, Sophie Allen

Sophia Wayne (far left), a junior at Episcopal High School, spent her summer studying abroad in Spain. Here she is with friends (from left) Charlotte Baird and Sophie Allen, also juniors at Episcopal.

This summer I traveled with two of my friends to study abroad in Seville, Spain, as part of the program called ISA High School so we could learn about Spanish culture and get better at speaking Spanish. After experiencing Madrid for two days, we spent a day in the medieval city of Toledo. It had a beautiful cathedral that we got to tour, as well as one of the oldest synagogues in Europe.

After Toledo, we arrived in Seville and met our señora, whom we lived with for the next two weeks. She was very nice but spoke no English. This was hard in the beginning. The Spanish they speak in Spain is a little different than the Spanish we learn in school. In the end, we got used to it and were able to communicate well.

Our first full day in Seville was so much fun because we got to meet the other students on our trip. We went on a tapas tour and got to try typical Spanish food. My favorite was the tortilla Española, a potato and egg omelet. We attended classes and also did fun activities with our group, such as kayaking down the Guadalquivir River and touring the famous cathedral in Seville. We traveled to Gibraltar, which was my favorite excursion. We went up the huge Rock of Gibraltar and were able to see the tip of Africa. Gibraltar is a British territory, where they speak English and use the British Pound as money – and it’s surrounded by Spain!

We traveled to the coastal city of Cadiz, where we spent the night and went to the beach. We got a little lost in the city, which was kind of scary since we could not really use our phones. Luckily, my friend Charlotte is really good at reading maps and led us back to our hotel. The last week in Seville was amazing. We attended classes every day, but had more freedom and were able to explore the city. I definitely want to do something like this again in the future.

Want to be a Buzz Kid? Email approximately 350 words, a high-resolution photo and caption to [email protected]. Or mail it to The Buzz Magazines, 5001 Bissonnet, Suite 100, Bellaire, Texas 77401.